Learning to Lie
by signpost
Summary: Spot has secrets... secrets that only Race knows. When an old enemy returns to threaten his position, can Spot regroup and come to terms with his life? Complete!
1. one

****Disclaimer**: You all know the drill.  Disney characters = not mine.  Yet.**

It was the middle of the afternoon, and though it was only late September, winter had come early.  For many young people, this was the coldest day they could remember, even in New York, where surprising weather was the norm.  While some newsies were still braving the cold twilight outside, more still were stumbling in from the outside, shivering in their patched clothes.  "Forget today's money, I'll keep me fingers!" was the cry of the day.  

It was fair to say that had this day occurred a year before, the newsies would still be out on the emptying streets, desperate to sell their last papers.  Now, however, things had changed.  Since they were no longer required to eat their losses, thanks to the Cowboy and those who had stood with him, it wasn't as much of a loss if they came in from the cold with a couple of papers still clutched in their fingers.

In the attic of the Lodging House, four newsies sat, intent on their business, as a single candle flickered on the floor in between them.  Though they enjoyed the company of their fellow newsies, a good game of poker just wasn't as much fun with lots of people staring down their every move.

On the side closest to the window, a slender newsie looked up from the cards he'd been dealt and stared, stone-faced at his three companions.  The newsie sitting opposite him was short but strong, with an olive complexion, high cheekbones, black hair, and an equally serious expression on his face.  He was Racetrack, and he was the only threat to the slender newsie's dominance of the game.  The other two were just in it for fun.  Mush, with tightly curled dark hair, tanned skin, and big brown eyes, and Kid Blink, with blond hair, blue eyes, an ever-present smile, and a large eyepatch dominating his face, were lots of fun to have around, but they were terrible poker players.  Everything they felt showed clearly in their eyes, so they couldn't hold back the looks of triumph when they got a good hand or their disappointment when the hand they were dealt was bad.  And the slender newsie was taking full advantage of that, and cleaning them out as best he could -- Or he would be, if not for Racetrack's skills.

"Spot?" Racetrack said.  The slender newsie looked at him cooly.  "Your turn."

Spot's thin fingers tapped the ground impatiently as he swept his gaze over the three of them, considering what to do next.  Eventually, he casually tossed a couple of coins into the pot and pushed his longish light brown hair out of his eyes.  "See you and raise you, Race."

Mush dropped out pretty quickly, and Blink followed a round later.  It was down to just Racetrack and Spot, and they were holding no prisoners.  As Spot and Race kept dropping money into the middle of their circle, the mood became increasingly grim and determined.  Though none of the other three would have admitted it, it was clear that the decreasing good cheer was entirely due to Spot.  They were both playing to win, but Racetrack was his usual casual, unflappable self.  The intensity that was radiating from Spot, though, could have burned a hole in the cards.  It was always there in him, barely beneath the surface, even at the best of times.  On the rare occasions that Spot was in a genuinely good mood, even those newsies who considered him a friend were uneasy around him.  If they could have described it, they would have said that being around Spot was like walking on a wall only inches wide, knowing that if you slipped, it was a long way to the ground.

Not wanting to distract the two who were still playing, Mush whispered to Blink, "Did you see that lady again this mornin'?"

"Yeah," Blink whispered back.  "'s the third time she's come 'round this week.  Ya'd think she'd've given up by now."

"That who'd've given up by now, Blink?" Race asked, his eyes still trained on his cards.

"The lady looking for her son," Blink answered, still speaking quietly so as not to distract Spot.  "She's been hangin' round Manhattan for months now."

"So? What's the big deal?" Spot sneered slightly. "There's plenty of folks lookin' for their long-lost baby.  What makes this one special?"

Mush shrugged slightly, uncomfortable with having attracted Spot's attention.  "Well... I s'pose it's that she keeps comin' back.  I feel bad."  At a raised eyebrow from Spot, Mush quickly amended: "She always looks so sad.  It makes me wanna help her."

Spot slammed his cards face down on the ground and stared at Mush.  "You don't _never help her, y'hear me, Mush!? Ye're too soft, too soft, Mushy.  It's us against them, don't you know that?"_

While the other two were still looking startled at Spot's sudden outburst, Race spoke calmly.  "Relax, Spot.  Nobody's helping no one."

Spot either didn't hear him, or pretended not to.  "How long you been a newsie, Mush? How long? Those adults -- they don't wanna help us, they wanna put us in refuges, prisons, they wanna gouge every last penny that we earn sellin' papes with our blood and our sweat.  They don't help _us and we don't help __them, got that?"_

Though Mush's brown eyes were full of hurt, he spoke bravely, "Adults is people too, Spot.  When that lady walks around cryin' for her Patrick, it jes' breaks my heart."  Though Spot barely reacted, the way that his irises contracted and his fingers clenched slightly did not go unnoted by Race, who pulled a cigar out of his pocket and sagely lit it on the candle sitting between them all.

"Did you say," Spot said a bit too calmly, "_Patrick?"  At the answering nod, he took a deep breath through his nose and stared at his facedown cards._

"What would it hurt," Racetrack asked around his cigar, "to help this lady?"  He stared carefully at Spot."

"I can't believe what I'm hearin'," Spot said angrily in return.  "Listen, all of you'se, we've got us a lot of runaways in our ranks.  This one lady is nothing new, there are lots of mothers out there with missin' children.  What if these children don't wanna be found, eh? Should we betray each other and sell each other out to the adult that looks the saddest and pays the highest price? What kind of newsies are you'se?"  He snatched up the gold-topped cane that he kept by him at all times like a scepter and waved it around threateningly.

"Sorry, Spot," Blink said quickly.  "We didn't mean nothin' by it; we was jes' talking."  He wasn't really very sorry, but he knew Spot's temper; they all remembered how he had flown at the Cowboy when they thought that Jack had sold them out, and how it had taken five of his own to hold him back.  It was not for nothing that Spot Conlon was the most well-known newsie in the entire city: his cutthroat attitude and willingness to take on anyone, even those stronger than him, had built a reputation for him.  His selling skills, while quite good, were not nearly as important.  The Cowboy could take that prize, for all Spot cared, as long as _he was the leader of the Brooklyn newsies, among the toughest boys in the city.  Blink knew all this, and simply sought to calm Spot down before he actually decided to do anything with that cane of his._

Before Spot could answer, Racetrack broke in smoothly.  "There, Spot.  They'se sorry.  Why don't we finish our game?"

Although Spot did put down his cane and pick his cards back up, his concentration was broken, wavering.  Poker was the furthest thing from his mind now, and it showed in his face.  When at last Racetrack won the hand and raked in the coins triumphantly, Spot stood up, clutching his cane, turned around, and took a big swing at the wall.

"Stupid game," he snarled over the startled yelps of the other three at the solid sound of the cane connecting with the wall.  He turned around and looked down at the three, all looking up at him.  "Why did I walk all the way over from Brooklyn for this, huh?"  He took a deep breath.  "Look, it's gettin' late.  I gotta be getting back to Brooklyn."

"But it's _freezin_'_ out!" Mush said kindly.  "Why not stay here tonight? We got extra beds."_

"I said," Spot said slowly and clearly, "I gotta be getting back to Brooklyn."  Mush started to protest again, but Blink, who was in a better position to see the hole in the wall that Spot's cane had made, shook his head warningly, and Mush subsided.

Grabbing his hat from the floor, Spot jammed it solidly on his head and stalked to the stairs.  Kid Blink, Mush, and Racetrack could all hear the sound of his feet stamping down the stairs, around the rooms, and finally, out the front door into the deepening Manhattan night. 

**Author's Note:** Big thanks to B, better known around here as studentnumber24601, for introducing me to the movie, getting me hooked, inspiring me, and beta-ing for me.


	2. two

It _was_ damned cold, Spot reflected as he walked down the empty streets.  He still had a ways to go till he reached the Brooklyn Bridge, and already he was shivering.  _Maybe I shoulda stayed in Manhattan.  But no sooner had the thought entered his mind than he dismissed it.  _I'm the leader of the __Brooklyn___ newsies.  Hell, I'm _Brooklyn___ herself! I can't go spending the night other places.  Who knows what those bums would get up to without me?_

A small grin did cross his angular face as he thought of the hundreds of newsies, many older than his fifteen years, many much stronger, who followed his orders and jumped when he said jump.  There were so many that he'd had to designate subleaders to keep them all under his heel.  _He'd have been impressed with you, Spot; you did what he wanted, though not in the way he expected._

Spot could almost see him now: a tall, gruff man with a thick brown beard, always impeccably dressed.  He'd always let Spot climb onto his – No, that wasn't right, he'd always let _Patrick_ climb onto his lap and look at his pocket watch...

_Patrick was always a very small boy, and sometimes he had the uncomfortable feeling that his father had wanted someone bigger and tougher, but when sitting on his father's lap, the older man had never seemed to mind.  _After all_, he imagined his father thinking, _he's only five years old – There's time.  He'll grow.

_Whenever Patrick looked at the back of the shiny pocket watch, he could see a distorted image of his face.  Whenever his father wasn't looking, though, he would angle the watch so he could see his father's face instead.  That way, whenever his father was yelling at people – Patrick's mother, or grandparents, or employees (just about anybody, really), Patrick could pretend he wasn't paying attention.  Then he could just sit and watch his father, but not stare, which would have been rude._

_On this particular occasion, his father had been reprimanding a clumsy worker for spilling some cloth in the mud.  After deducting the cost of the cloth from the patient's salary and dismissing the shaking girl, his father had looked down at him before he had a chance to move the watch and caught his fascinated gaze in the reflection._

_The deep, booming laugh rang through his father's luxurious office.  "Ahh," his father had said, wiping his streaming eyes.  "If ever I needed proof that you are my son, Patrick, you have just provided it.  You've learned a valuable lesson all on your own: always watch people, my son.  If you can watch them without them knowing, you'll find out what they really want, who they really are.  You may be small, Patrick, but you are a true O'Connell."_

_Little Patrick positively glowed as his father lifted him from his lap and gave him a great bear hug.  When he could breathe again, he gasped out, "Is that why all of your employees do what you tell them, Papa?"_

_"Well," his father lowered him to his lap again, a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye, "That's part of it, yes.  But aside from watching them, you have to control them.  Find out what they want, what they fear.  Offer rewards, threaten punishments.  That girl," he nodded out the door, "didn't spill the cloth on purpose, of course she didn't, but the punishment will make her be extra careful in the future, you see if it doesn't, my son.  She'll never make that mistake again.  Or if I see an employee working very hard, Patrick, I give him a bonus.  He'll be wanting that bonus again, so he shows up and works hard every day in hopes of getting my attention again."_

_Patrick nodded.  "I have a question, Papa.  If... if he doesn't get your attention again, would he keep working so hard? Or would he get lazy?"_

_"That's a good question, Patrick.  He knows that I see," here his father lowered his head, his intense eyes boring into Patrick's, "he just doesn't know when I see.  And if I see a worker being lazy, he loses his job.  With safe, dependable jobs so scarce these days, the common worker cannot afford to lose a job, else they'll be sleeping out on the streets in their own filth.  Keep them wondering, boy, keep them fearing that you might be watching.  Preachers put the fear of the Almighty into the wicked, my son.  We simply put the fear of the Almighty – that is, of the O'Connells – into my employees."_

_Then Patrick's mother had walked into the office and started giving his father a piece of her mind for, in her words, "trying to make my sweet little boy into a master manipulator and a self-proclaimed god."  _

_Patrick wasn't listening to his parents argue, and for once, he wasn't looking through his father's pocket watch.  His young mind was buzzing with everything his father had told him.  Dimly it came to him that he needed to remember this information, this talk.  He would one day control men, just like his father.  He was an O'Connell._

And now there was a lady, some crazy woman, running all around New York, looking for a Patrick.  It couldn't be him, certainly.  Patrick was a common enough name, especially with the floods of Irish that had entered the country in recent decades.  _I'll bet there're hundreds of Patricks all over the city.  Thousands, even.  And how many of them are runaways? Lots.  It's not me she wants.  I'm not Patrick O'Connell anymore.  I'm Spot Conlon.  The Spot Conlon.  That's all anybody knows.  Patrick O'Connell is dead.  _It couldn't be my mother.  My mother is...__

"Carryin' the banner, Spot!" The cheerful voice broke into his reverie and brought him out of the past.

He looked down at the short newsie beaming up at him.  He didn't recognize the kid, but it was no wonder the kid recognized him: every newsie in the city knew Spot Conlon.  Every single one.  

"Carryin' the banner, kid," he replied wearily.  "What're you doin' out so late in this weather?"

"Not very much, Mister Conlon Sir," the boy said, visibly excited to be talking to Spot.  "I'se just goin' back to my home.  Ma and Pa'll be gettin' worried."

So this was one of those newsies with a home and a real family.  It did happen, but the majority of Spot's newsies were sturdy boys, boys who were orphans or ran away from home as soon as they realized they could.  Spot regarded the boy with some interest.  He did look better kept than the average newsie; more like the Mouth had been when he had met the Cowboy.  He hadn't even had a newsie name, just "David Jacobs."  These days, though the Mouth had been selling lots of papers with the Cowboy, his father had been pressuring him to go back to school, and he'd been sleeping in the Manhattan Lodging House more often than not.  Spot snorted inwardly.  School was worse than The Refuge.  School was a prison just as much, except that school expected its prisoners to learn, and punished them if they did not.

"Hey, kid," he asked suddenly.  "You go to school in the mornings?"

"Yes, sir!"

"And your teachers let you talk like a newsie in school? Or do ya really talk normal-like?"

When the boy responded, the heavy accent and atrocious grammar was gone.  "No, sir.  My parents wouldn't let me.  Neither would my teachers.  It's much more fun to speak like a newsie, though!" 

"True."  Spot was silent for a minute.  "Speak like us as much as you dare, kid.  Suckers on the street are more likely to be generous if they think you'se really poor and dumb."

Spot nodded slightly and started to walk away, but stopped himself.  "Hey, kid," he called back, "what's your name?"

"John."

"Not that name."

"Oh!" the boy grinned happily.  "Name's Sparky, sir.  I move upwards of seventy-five papes a day!"

_Sparky?__ "Well, Sparky-boy, maybe stop by Brooklyn sometime.  Got lots of papes need sellin' there."_

"Yes, sir!"  If Sparky had been excited before, he was positively ecstatic now. 

"Now get goin'.  It's cold."  The younger boy saluted jauntily and continued on in his direction with a spring to his step.  _That little newsie will be the envy of his friends for days, all because Spot Conlon spoke to him, responded to him.  Hear that, Papa? I control them, but unlike you, I don't even need to promise rewards.  My mere presence is reward enough.  I am a Conlon._


	3. three

Brooklyn.  Home.  Spot breathed a deep sigh of relief.  Though he wouldn't ever have admitted it to anybody, he always felt slightly uneasy outside of Brooklyn.  Brooklyn was his fortress, and he was its king.  Outside Brooklyn, though, to any adult, he was just another street rat.  _Just_ another street rat.  Another nobody.

"Oi, Spot," came from his left.  His eyes flicked over to the side.  A tallish newsie in a faded red shirt with short blond hair and a club clutched in one hand smiled slightly at him.

"Oi, Crumbs," he returned.  "Pulled guard duty tonight, eh?"

"Yeah."  Crumbs smiled.  "'s not so bad.  It gives me time ta think, an' soak someone if they look at me bad."  

"Any soakin' tonight?"

"Naw.  Though there was one guy got close.  What a bum."

Spot's senses sharpened.  "What guy?"

"He was wearin'... Well, it looked like a suit, like a scab'd wear, but it was all raggy.  Had a big scar just here—" Crumbs traced a line from the outside of his right eye all the way down to his chin, "—and he really wanted to get through."

"A scar," Spot said, hiding his wariness.  "He say what he wanted?"

"When he finally got it that I wasn't lettin' him in, he said, 'You tell Spotty that I'se back.  Tell him that Blue's back, and I'se tired of livin' in the shadows.'"  Crumbs shrugged.  

"That's exactly what he said?" Spot asked sharply.  "Swear you got it right.  You sure it was Blue?"  Crumbs nodded, looking slightly nervous.  No one liked to see Spot in a temper.  Spot wrapped his hand around his cane.  "We'se gonna have a meetin', Crumbs," he said tightly.  "Tell 'em all."

"A meetin', Spot? Where? When? Who?"

"Here.  Now.  All the Brooklyn newsies."

"_Now? But it's the middle of the night!"_

"So wake 'em," Spot said furiously.  "You don't question me, got that, Crumbs? Wake 'em, get 'em to get the rest of the Brooklyn boys, and get 'em all here.  _Now_."

Looking embarrassed, Crumbs nodded and dropped his club.  He turned and ran.  Spot's newsies in the immediate vicinity covered several blocks, so it would take at least ten minutes before enough of them were sufficiently awake to go get all the rest in the extended area.

Disdaining the dropped club (_I'll have to speak to him about that – Never__ drop your weapon), Spot angrily turned around, taking up guard duty for the time being.  He grasped his cane like a club.  It had given quite a few people a sound thrashing in its time, and he had no doubt it would continue to._

_Patrick was eight or nine.  It was beginning to become abundantly clear that he was always going to be small: a small boy, a small man.  His father looked at him strangely every time he saw Patrick now.  His parents were beginning to fight a lot more, mostly about him...or at least, that was how the fights would start.  _

_"There's never been a male O'Connell under 5'10", woman!" his father roared._

_"Are you accusing me of something?" his mother shrieked back.  "Because if you are, Thomas, just come out and say it!"_

_"Accusing you, Ashleigh? Of course I am! How could it not be your fault that the boy looks more like a girl? No son of mine, Ashleigh!"_

_"He is your son, Thomas, whether you like it or not, so you'd better learn to accept it.  He's the same baby you rocked and the same little boy you held.  He _is_ your son!"_

_"The boy looks nothing like me.  Nothing.  Though he does bear a striking resemblance to the man who brings your family the newspaper every morning and afternoon, my _dear_."_

_"How _dare_ you!" she screeched.  Patrick could hear the sound of her slapping his father across the face from the next room where he cowered under his covers.  "How dare you, Thomas Seamus O'Connell! I came to you a virgin, and you know that perfectly well."_

_"Oh, aye, I took your virginity, but how do I know what you've been up to since then? You've disdained my bed since then, haven't you, woman?"_

_"I was with child after the first time, you great fool, and after Patrick was born, I had no wish to have any more children.  We've been over this a million times."_

_"The boy is not mine!"_

_"He has a name, you bloody ox! His name is _Patrick_, and he certainly is_ yours.  How dare you doubt me?!"__

_"I suppose it's true that you may be cold enough to keep other men away," his father said nastily.  "You certainly have no great love for your wifely duties, do you, _wife_?"_

_"The __Holy__Church__ says that the procreative act is not meant to be enjoyable," she said primly.  "Any such pleasure is unholy and of the devil.  If that is what you're wanting, you can go to a loose woman and sully your own soul, husband.__"_

_"And your precious church didn't teach you to be fruitful, woman?" There were sounds of a struggle.  Patrick clapped his hands over his ears, but even that didn't block out the noises, the small cry of pain from his mother.  "You'll bear... me many more... children, woman," his father panted from the next room.  "You're still young...enough.  And any... brats you whelp...will be _mine!_"_

_After that, nothing that was said was coherent.  Patrick lay paralyzed, wanting to cry out, but knowing that no one would come and comfort him if he did.  Everyone had always told him how much his parents loved each other, how their faces had shone on their wedding day, how Thomas O'Connell and Ashleigh O'Brian were a match made in heaven.  To be sure, it had been an arranged marriage, a business merger.  O'Connell Cloths was to combine with O'Brian Sewing to form a place where clothes were sewn, then sold.  It was a new idea, that of selling pre-made outfits to customers, but they had all been certain that it would be a success, and it had.  While the rich did not shop with them, the middle class was quite happy to buy pre-made clothes and save themselves the trouble and non-existent time it would take to sew.  _"But it was a _happy arranged marriage_," Patrick's Grandma O'Connell would assure him.  _"You could just look at them and see how much they were in love."  __Even if there had ever been any love between his parents, there was none now._

_"Patrick?"  He glanced out from under his blanket.  His mother stood in the doorway, looking disheveled and clothed in a dressing robe.  "You heard it all, didn't you?"  He nodded.  "Oh, my son..."  She came, sat down on his bed, and held him.  Though his eyes were red with tears, he did not cry.  He could almost hear his father's voice whispering in his ear, " Sadness is weakness.  Weakness is failure."_   Weakness is failure.  I will not fail.  I _am_ his son.  I am.  I'll be strong, and I'll make him see that.

Newsies were starting to trickle in now: a few here, a few there.  All nodded to him and murmured his name in greeting.  Spot nodded back, but didn't say anything back to them.  He didn't show any signs of recognition or weakness.  _I have to be strong now._

It seemed like hours till the last of the newsies arrived, and probably was.  Spot grabbed the last one he saw and instructed him to be on guard duty for the duration of the meeting.

"But I won't hear the meetin'," the boy protested.

Spot shrugged.  "Don't be late no more."

He left the sullen boy there and walked down the street, through a teeming crowd of newsies, most tired, some grumpy, all curious as to why they had been called there so urgently.  Striding through the crowd, questions bombarded him from all sides, but he did not deign to answer them.

However, neither did he waste time.  In the middle of the street, he jumped onto a lamppost and wedged his feet into the curlicues of steel, so he was now standing head, shoulders, chest and stomach above everyone else.  At the sight of him, they slowly quieted until the street was nearly silent but for some stray whispering.

"You'se all know me, right?" Spot yelled.  An answering roar greeted his question.  "For five years now, I've taken responsibility for all of you'se!"  Another roar.  "I live with you'se, I work with you'se, I celebrate with you'se, and I suffer with you'se!"  They were his now, applauding to nearly his every word.  "We'se free, we'se makin' money, but tell me, boys, is we happy?!"  The yelling and whistling were overwhelming.  If there were a few in the crowd who did not agree with their friends, they were smart enough to keep it quiet.  Spot made his voice a little softer.  "You guys is my family, and I'se yours.  Newsies ain't rich no matter where you go, but we look out for each other."

There was a long moment of silence, which didn't bother Spot.  Though it was unwritten and unnamed, it was practically a solemn law that newsies take care of each other.  The boys were merely taking a moment to reflect upon that.

He held his scepter up.  "So tell me, boys, how many of you'se all remember how it used to be? Before I came to Brooklyn?"  There was no answer, exactly as he'd intended.  "I'll tell you, boys, how it used to be.  Newsies didn't look out for each other! We was lost, just trying to keep from getting' mugged long enough to get some food! Some o'you'se was sleepin' in sewers 'cause you didn't have no place else where you could get outta the snow."  Some of the older boys were looking grim, clearly remembering this sad state of affairs, and many of the smaller boys were listening intently, this having been before their time.  "Newsies was startin' to turn up dead 'cause they didn't have no one looking out for them.  How many of you'se remember Nose O'Neill?"

A significant number of hands went up as an equal number of hats were swept off of bowed and tousled heads.  "Who was he?" a small newsie near the front whispered to his neighbor.  

Spot's sharp ears caught the comment.  "I'll tell ya who he was, Stovetop!" he spoke to the boy, pitching his voice to carry to the crowd.  "Nose  O'Neill was a newsie, one of our own.  Moved at least five hundred papes a week.  One night he went to visit some of all'o'you'se on the other side of Brooklyn.  He never made it there, never came back.  We found him three days later, lyin' in that alley with a knife in his heart and his wallet cleaned out!"  Gasps greeted Spot's exclamation as he gestured with his cane to exactly where the stabbing had taken place.  Boys standing near the alley in question subtly crowded away from it.

"'s right," Spot said with a grim satisfaction.  "We was in a sorry state.  Who was our 'leader' then, boys? Who was s'pposed to be lookin' out for us? _Who?_"

"Blue!" a voice from the crowd rang out.  "It was Blue!"

"Tha's right," Spot said.  "It was Blue.  He did quite a job of takin' care of his newsies, didn't he, boys?"  An angry grumbling came back at him.  "Look what I done for us, boys! Look how we are now! Any of you'se would be happy if he came back?"

A resounding, _"No!" was the answer.  _

Spot nodded.  "We protect our own, huh, boys? Now, tell me, what would all of you'se say if I told you that Blue tried to get into our territory yesterday?"  There were several audible gasps.  "Get up here, Crumbs.  Tell 'em all what you told me."

After a crowd-shy and shaking Crumbs had related the story to the crowd, Spot knew that he had won.  He could smell the mood in the air, and it was anger.

"So what do you say, boys?" he yelled as loud as he could.  "We gonna just let Blue come back and take over? Or are we gonna stop him and let him know that you don't mess around with Spot Conlon and the Brooklyn newsies?!"

A great cheer came at him from all sides.  Spot stood there, exulting in it, in the presence of his newsies.  In the excitement of the moment, thoughts of the woman searching high and low for her Patrick were completely forgotten.


	4. four

It was raining outside.  The cold weather hadn't lasted too long, and the newsies were again lingering on the streets, many grateful for the free bath they were receiving.  Outside the Lodging House, younger boys ran around tackling each other, wrestling in the muddy puddles.  Inside the house, Racetrack sat alone in the attic.  For once, he wasn't smoking or even thinking about gambling.  He simply lay flat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, his hands pillowing his head.  He was so deep in thought that he didn't even hear the footsteps on the floor next to his head.

"Hey, Race."

Racetrack started momentarily, but relaxed when he recognized the red bandanna and floppy brown hair.  "Heya, Cowboy.  What's doin'?"

Jack shrugged lightly and sat down, his lanky body folding up like a newspaper.  "You've been spendin' a lot of time alone up here, Race.  Just thought I'd find out what's goin' on."  He leaned back against the wall.  "That, and I'se not in the mood to get muddy.  I hate showin' up at the Jacobs' dirty."

Racetrack grinned lopsidedly.  "Yeah? Tell me, Jack, how's Sarah?"

A soft look came into Jack's eyes at the mention of Sarah.  "Good.  Real good."

Seeing that he'd get no more out of Jack than that, Race decided to talk about what was really on his mind.  "Jack.  Ya heard the news from Brooklyn?"

"Not much.  Spot's turned his territory into a big military set-up, eh?"

"Yeah.  Boys patrollin' every street when they should be working, Spot holed up in that old warehouse he calls a castle like a king under attack..."

Jack slouched with a sigh.  "Sometimes I worry 'bout Spot, Race.  He's a good guy, a good newsie, but he's like a... a volcano.  More stuff inside than outside, waitin' for the right time to blow, and if he was to blow, he'd take out half the city."

Race had to chuckle slightly at the mental image of an exploding Spot destroying half of New York City, but he quickly grew serious again.  "Jack, this time I really think he's gonna blow."

Remembering Spot's reaction upon seeing him dressed as a scabber months before, Jack said, "He's blown up real good before.  Why would now be different?"

Racetrack nodded at the hole next to Jack's head.  Jack turned his head.  Seeing it, he reached up a hand to feel the break in the plaster.  As he related the story of how that gap had come to be there, Jack's expression grew increasingly perplexed.

"So what, Race? He got angry.  Happens all the time.  You know that.  I know that.  You've seen him with a slingshot."

"Jack, how old do ya think I am?"

Jack blinked.  "Huh? Race, what's that got to do with anythin'?"

Race sighed.  "I'se older than you think, Jack.  I'se small and I got a baby face, which helps me sell papes, but I'se not as young as I look."

"So?"

"I knows things, Jack.  Things about Spot – about where he came from."

Jack looked incredulous.  "You know the mysterious past of our Mr. Spot Conlon?"

"Yeah," Racetrack said, refusing to allow Jack's disbelieving tone to annoy him.  "I've seen him young and vulnerable.  I even know his real name, Jack, and it definitely ain't Conlon neither."

*******************************************************

Spot sat comfortably in his strangely overstuffed chair that he had found in his current hideout.  It wasn't the nicest place; it was an abandoned warehouse, but he'd decorated the largest office with things he and his newsies had managed to filch from just about everywhere: pictures, pillows, candles (some no more than a stub), even lengths of cloth.  The picture from _The Sun taken during the strike had a prominent place on the wall.  Spot knew that he wasn't rich, but he was determined to live as much like the king he knew he was as possible.  Every night, he went to sleep on top of those pillows and slept grandly._

He was aware that most of his newsies did not have the same luxury.  Sometimes it didn't bother him – after all, he was their leader and the brains that spoke for all of them.  Why shouldn't he have a nicer place? Other times, though, he brushed off the traces of snobbery that his upbringing had left him with.  Leader or no, he was nothing without those he led.  On those more altruistic days, he would open his warehouse for any homeless, bedless newsie to sleep in (a boon during times of extreme weather), and sometimes his own large room and pillows would be opened to a lucky few (usually those who got there fastest).  Spot knew to reward speed; if he simply opened his room to the sickest or most needy newsies, they would bless him for that night, then curse him the next when they were sleeping in a dirty gutter again.  He truly cared for all of the Brooklyn newsies as one would a family, but he cared equally for the security of his position.  If he wasn't their leader, he was nothing.  If he wasn't on top, he was on the bottom.  There was no in-between.

_Patrick was eight, and he was trying to make his father smile by popping up behind his father's desk and making silly faces at him.  It didn't work, and his father sent him fleeing with the yell, "God damn you, boy, out of my office! Out! Out! And stay out!"  _

_It wasn't as if this were anything new at this point.  His father had become increasingly irritable and increasingly reluctant to acknowledge Patrick's existence as anything but "boy."  These days he never even spoke to Patrick unless it was to chastise him for something.  However, Patrick had always held out the hope that somehow he'd be able to melt his father's heart and make him love him again, like he used to.  Hope faded with each failure, though.  Deep inside, Patrick knew that the indulgent and tough, but doting father was gone forever.  In his place was a stranger, only interested in his business and in creating the heir that Patrick so obviously _wasn't_.  _

_He could no longer even go to his mother for unconditional love and support.  Oh, she loved him, of course, but honestly, she wasn't well.  She was overly emotional and sometimes she talked about things that made no sense: children she'd never had, places she'd never been, things she'd never done.  One time, she spent an hour regaling Patrick with the story of her time in China and how she'd successfully fought off a demon with red horns and a large manhood (though thankfully, she was vague on many of the details).  The story had ended with an impromptu exorcism, performed by her, of course.  Patrick tended to blame her mental shakiness on his father's abusive behavior, but it didn't stop him from still wanting his father's love and reassurance._

_So as he ran blindly through the halls of his father's warehouse, if he didn't cry, it wasn't for lack of wanting to.  He'd never forgotten, though, that to show weakness to others was to fail.  He still cried when he was alone, but always with an ear out for approaching footsteps.  Though he'd never been caught, Patrick was convinced that if his father ever caught him crying, he'd throw him out on the streets, son or no._

_Therefore, he was very careful in his choice of hideouts.  He'd recently found one small room in the warehouse that he'd never seen anyone enter or exit.  Upon closer examination, it turned out to be the room where faulty clothes were put, but as his father ran a very tight ship, there was almost never any cause for anyone to go in there._

_Patrick slipped through the door, closing it behind him securely before he sank to his knees and let the sobs come.  _I'm too old to cry, I'm too old to cry, I'm too old to cry..._ But he wasn't really trying to stop.  He hated to admit it, but it felt good.  Every time he cried, it was as if he could wash away everything that was going wrong._

_He didn't cry prettily, either.  His mouth twisted, his nose ran, his face turned splotchy in the struggle to keep from being too audible.  He held his knees to his chest, eyes clenched closed, hands white-knuckled, back shaking uncontrollably.  _So what if I'm not tall and strong? So what...?__

_Finally, the cries subsided, and Patrick just rocked himself back and forth, hiccoughing a bit.  He took a deep breath, wiping his now-bloodshot eyes, then glanced up for the first time._

_And froze.___

_There was a boy watching him.  He didn't look like he was going to laugh at the show of frailty he'd just witnessed, but he'd let Patrick cry himself silly and not said a word to alert him to his presence._

_Though Patrick was shaky, his hackles went up immediately.  "Who – Who're you? And what're you doing here?"_

_The boy, who didn't look that much older than himself, held up a half-smoked cigarette in answer.  "Just an employee," he said in answer.  "I'd ask ya the same, but I already know.  You're Ol' Man O'Connell's boy, ain't ya?"_

_Patrick, though he was still angry, looked curiously at the boy.  "Employee? Father doesn't allow boys under twelve to work here.  He says they're too clumsy and would lose him lots of money."_

_The boy coughed, running a hand sheepishly through his dark hair.  "'Cept that I'se not under twelve, kid.  I'se fourteen."_

_"Fourteen!"  That got his attention.  "But... you barely look bigger than me!"_

_"Yeah."__  The boy gave him a small smile, bright teeth in a tan face with serious dark eyes.  "Always been small, but I'se definitely fast.  Watch this."  He stuck his cigarette in his mouth.  Clearly happy for the audience, he produced a deck of cards from a white sleeve as if by magic and shuffled them with dexterous hands before making the deck disappear again._

_Patrick looked at him with wide eyes, but then remembered why they were both there in the first place.  "You were there the whole time.  You saw me cry."_

_"Yeah."___

_"Why didn't you _say_ something?" Patrick asked angrily.  "Why'd you just let me act like a baby in front of you?"_

_The boy shrugged.  "Seemed like somethin' ya needed to do, kid.  I'se an orphan, so I seen people cry before, and you looked like you was gonna explode if you didn't get that outta you."_

_"An orphan?"__ Patrick looked at the ground.  "So it never mattered to anyone that you're small."_

_"Why would it matter?" the boy asked in amazement.  "Bein' small's been good to me.  Once _this_ job ends for the day, I go out as a newsie, and I looks young, so I sells a lot of papes.  Lots of people likes it when they think they'se helpin' some poor little boy, but you won't find too many as willin' to give to a fourteen year old boy, unless that boy's got considerable sellin' skills.  And I got skills too."_

_"You're a newsie?" Patrick was fascinated, his anger at the boy for not revealing himself sooner fading.  He'd never actually met someone of a lower social class before.  His parents had kept him very sheltered.  Whenever he went outside, there were strict rules as to who he could and could not talk to._

_"Yeah.__  Name's Anthony, but the others all call me Racetrack – That, or Race, for short.."_

_"Racetrack? What's that mean?"_

_Race winked.  "You'se too young and rich to know about gamblin', kid.  You'd be... somethin' O'Connell, then?"_

_"Patrick O'Connell.  But my father doesn't call me that."  Patrick froze in shame.  He hadn't meant to say that last part, but it just slipped out._

_Race cocked an eyebrow.  "Oh, yeah? What's your pop call you?"_

_"Boy."  Patrick hung his head in shame.  Here he was, confiding in a total stranger, a _poor_ stranger, being weak, doing everything his father had told him not to do._

_"That's rough, kid."  Racetrack took one last drag on his cigarette, then ground it out on a nearby windowsill.  "Tell ya what.  Next time you need a good cry, if I'se in here, don't worry 'bout it.  I won't make a sound, and you can cry all you need."_

_"But... I can't! Crying's weak!"  At a look from Race, Patrick said in a lower voice, "Father told me so."_

_It was clear from the look on Racetrack's face that he didn't agree with Patrick's father, but all he said was, "I'd best be getting' back to work before I'm caught by your Ol' Man, then.  See ya 'round, Spot."_

_"Spot?"__ Patrick looked up (not very far) at Racetrack._

_Racetrack stopped next to Patrick on his way out the door and touched Patrick's cheek.  "Spot.  You ain't never seen your face in a mirror when you've been cryin', have you?"_

_With that, he opened the door and slipped out as quietly as Patrick had slipped in.  For his own part, Patrick stood there stock-still, as though he were a statue.  Very slowly, he walked over to the window.  From it, he could see the bustling streets of __Brooklyn__, but that wasn't what he wanted.  The window was dirty, but not so dirty that he couldn't see a faint reflection of himself, reddened eyes and all.  Haltingly, he reached up a tentative hand to cradle the still-splotchy cheek that the older boy had touched._

_Wonderingly, he whispered, "Spot."      _

"Spot."

"Yeah?"

Crumbs stood at the entrance to Spot's room, hands clasped formally behind his back.  "It's six o'clock.  The boys is takin' a break for food."

Spot grimaced.  Initially, he'd frowned on breaks for food, but he knew that the newsies would revolt if he didn't give them food.  Though he still didn't like the idea, he knew not to fight it.  It'd been hard enough to convince the boys to give up even part of their selling time to patrol the streets of Brooklyn in search of any trouble that was looking for them.  Eventually, though, they'd agreed, both because they loved Spot and because they'd hated Blue.

"Any problems out there?" he asked finally.

"No.  No sign of Blue."  Crumbs hesitated.

Sensing some reticence, Spot said sharply, "Look at me, Crumbs.  What else?"

Crumbs was clearly uncomfortable, but he finally spoke.  "Well, some of the boys – not many, but some – is sayin' that I never saw Blue, that you made it up."

_"What?!"  Spot sprang to his feet, his hand going to the cane that hung from a belt loop like a sword.  "What's all this, Crumbs? Boys is sayin' that I'se a liar?!"_

Crumbs sighed.  He was probably the closest thing in Brooklyn Spot had to a friend, and he didn't want to say it, but though he knew that Blue had indeed returned, he thought that Spot had gone 'round the bend on this one.   "Spot, not all the boys love you.  Some of them liked the way things was when Blue was around."

Spot's mouth distorted with anger.  "So bring 'em to me, Crumbs.  Bring those bums to me and I'll soak 'em good and they'll shut those flappin' mouths."

"...And other boys is confused," Crumbs continued, knowing that he was ignoring Spot at his own risk, but also knowing that he had to finish.  "They loves you and they loves Brooklyn, but they don't know why they'se doin' this."

Drawing his cane like a sword, Spot stormed over to Crumbs and shook it in his face.  "They'se doin' this 'cause I told 'em to.  Hear me, Crumbs? _I'se__ the leader here_."

"I don't doubt you, Spot," Crumbs said, pushing the cane out of his face.  "But the boys don't know why you just don't go find him and finish Blue yourself.  Like ya did last time."

Abruptly, Spot turned and walked around Crumbs and out the door of the office.  Confused, Crumbs followed him.  Though Crumbs didn't know where Spot was going, Spot chose his path through the large rooms of the warehouse with confidence.  Finally, he halted at one nondescript door.

As Crumbs watched, Spot unscrewed the top of his cane and shook it upside down until a small golden key fell out and hit the floor with a small _clang_.  Screwing his cane back together tightly, Spot picked up the small key and unlocked the room.  The door swung open creakily as Spot stepped inside.  Crumbs didn't want to follow; it seemed almost as though Spot were stepping onto some sort of hallowed ground.  However, Spot waved him in and he followed, glancing around cautiously.

There didn't seem to be anything special about this room.  It was just a small dusty room.  The only note of interest was that the room appeared not to have been emptied when the warehouse was abandoned, at least four or five years before.  Small bolts of cloth lay neatly in piles all over the room and the remains of many cigarettes littered the floor.

Though Crumbs didn't say anything, the question must have been clear in his eyes when he turned to look at Spot.

"I thinks better in this room," Spot said, almost gruffly.  He turned to stare out the window, keeping his back to Crumbs, but his voice was clear when he spoke.  "The boys is doin' this to protect themselves, Crumbs.  You don't remember Blue, but I do.  He's after me, but he'd be willin' to hurt a couple of my boys to get to me.  I ain't gonna let that happen, Crumbs.  Newsies is family.  An ol' friend taught me that.  You don't need parents when you got your friends guardin' your back.  That's what my oldest friend taught me and that's what my boys is out there doin' right now, even if they don't know it, Crumbs.  They'se guardin' each other's backs.  When Blue shows up – and he will – I'll take him on again, and I'll beat him again.  Maybe give him another scar to match his first one."  Spot turned around and leaned against the windowsill.  His fox-like face was calm.  "Of course I'll beat him, Crumbs.  Of course I will.  But he'll have to come to me.  I don't go crawlin' on my belly, lookin' for him all scared-like.  Spot Conlon doesn't crawl on his belly to no one."

**Author's Note: I'm not very good at individual shout-outs, but to those of you who reviewed, thanks so much.  I really do appreciate it.  Not that I'd stop writing if I got no reviews, or any such nonsense, but when all's said and done, it really is nice to know that someone besides yourself is reading it and enjoying it.  So thanks again!**

~signpost


	5. five

It was the fourth day of military rule in Brooklyn, and the weather looked ominous.  The sky was piled high with dark clouds, each one blacker than the next, and a cold wind blew through the streets.  The newsies on patrol shivered as the wind whipped their thin clothes around them and an occasional drop of rain tormented them with thoughts of a deluge to come.

Up in his warehouse, Spot leaned against the windowsill and kept a close watch on the streets below.  There was a business man... two women hurrying towards somewhere... another woman ducking into a building...and beyond them were his newsies, one on each curb, keeping an eye on everyone who went past.  He nodded tightly, satisfied.  Whenever Blue showed up, he would have warning.  

This fight would be different than the first time he'd fought Blue for the control of Brooklyn.  That time, he'd been a frightened ten year old who'd had to rely on wits alone.  Blue had expected a couple of puny swings and a quick end to the fight, but what he had gotten was very different – thanks in a large part to Spot's cane, to the element of surprise, and to a knife that some anonymous newsie had slipped Spot's way when things got rough.

Yeah, this fight would be different.  Spot was larger and stronger now, and every bit as smart as he had ever been, but this time Blue knew not to underestimate him.

Lightning crashed, and Spot started.  It was as if the lightning were a great door opening, for the rain started pouring in earnest.  Within seconds, the window was soaked as sheets of water cascaded down it.  He leaned his forehead against the glass.

Suddenly, through the foggy reflection, he saw movement in the door to the office and whirled around, instinct making him raise his cane as if to strike.  He stayed that way, looking at the spectacle.

Three of his newsies held captive a fourth boy between them.  He struggled a bit, but mostly just looked annoyed.

"Hey, Chief," Pan, the boy holding the captive's left arm said, "we caught him tryin' to walk right in 'ere.  He struggled and gave Whiskers 'ere a black eye," he continued, shrugging towards the newsie bringing up the rear.  "What you want we should do with him?"

Spot paused for a moment.  "Let him go."  Pan looked incredulous, but when he hesitated, Spot slammed his cane down on the floor with a large _crack_.  "I said, let him go.  He's not a threat."  Slowly, wincing, they let go.  To his credit, the captive did not immediately turn around and nail them in their respective jaws; he merely adjusted his hat.  "Go away," Spot continued.  The boys looked at each other, confused.  To whom was he speaking? Them or the boy in between them?  Spot quickly clarified.  "Leave _him.  The rest of you, cheese it.  Get out.  Now."_

To their credit, they cleared out remarkably fast, closing the door gently behind him.  Once they were gone, Spot sighed and sat down in the large chair.  "Can't say I ever thought you'd show up here again."

Racetrack shrugged.  "Can't say I ever thought I would neither.  I ain't been back to Brooklyn since your pop fired me."

"So what're you doin' here, Race? If you came to have me thank you for everythin', I was under the impression that I'd gotten that outta the way a long time ago."  Racetrack walked over to the desk, not looking happy at all.  He used his hands to hoist himself into a sitting position on the desk.  "'Ey," Spot said, vaguely disturbed, "Get off my desk."

Racetrack didn't move.  "It ain't _your_ desk, _Patrick_."

"Don't call me that," Spot snarled.  "I ain't been Patrick for a long time, and you know it."

Race twisted around to stare at him angrily.  "Sure, why not? Everythin' else about ya is a lie, kid, so why remember that the world did exist before you took over 'round here?"

"You want me to throw you outta here?" Spot returned.  "I don't hafta sit here and listen to you talk like this."

"You wanna know why I'm here?" Race said, a trace of anger in his voice.  "'Cause I still care about you, or maybe it was just the boy you was.  I see you goin' off your head, and I came here to see if I could get you to stop actin' like you got no brains."

"I ain't gone nuts," Spot growled.  "I'se protectin' what's mine from Blue, and if this's how I gotta do it, so what?"

"You'se a complete _fake," said Race, ignoring Spot's question.  _

"And why would I want what's real, huh?" Spot said, spinning the chair around so he faced away from Race.  "Want me to go back to being Patrick: never able to stand up for himself, cryin' every time he finds a chance, scared out of his mind that his ma's gone bonkers and his pa's gonna toss him out on the street first chance he gets? You want that, Race? 'Cause I sure don't."

They sat there in silence, each facing opposite directions.  Exhausted, Spot leaned his head against the back of the chair.  It had been a long time since he and Racetrack had been alone in a room.  He could still remember the last time, though.  He'd been nine years old.

_Patrick no longer minded the weekly trips to his father's warehouse.  Every time, he would sneak away and find the small room.  Either Race would already be there, or he'd show up a few minutes later, cigarette in hand, cards in pocket, and a grin on his face._

_On this particular day, he'd gotten there before Racetrack.  When Racetrack did slip through the door, he was holding his hands behind his back._

_"Race!" Patrick said happily.  "It took you long enough.  I was starting to worry—"_

_"Nah, no worries, kid.  Hey, I brought ya somethin'."_

_"You did?" Patrick asked, amazed.  "Like a gift? For _me_?"_

_"'Course, Spot."  It still amused Racetrack that Patrick insisted Race calling him Spot, but he figured there was no harm in indulging the kid.  After all, it made him happy, right?  "Here ya go."_

_Patrick looked at what Race held out from behind his back.  "It's a...cane?"_

_Race laughed.  "It's not much, but I remembered last time when you said that you hated lookin' so young.  I figured that if you had something like this, maybe it'd make you look older."_

_Patrick grinned happily.  It wasn't that the gift itself was so wonderful, though the gold-capped cane was pretty nifty.  It was just that Race cared enough to remember what he said and to actually bring him a gift.  He reached out for it eagerly.  Race handed it over with a grin that matched Patrick's own._

_Patrick ran his hands over it reverently.  It was smooth and cool, and just heavy enough to give it a pleasing feeling of _realness_, but not heavy enough that it was hard enough for him to hold.  Grasping the skinny end tightly with both hands, he swung it around with all of his strength.  Then switching to holding the golden end one-handed, he stabbed it forward like a sword.  Finding it more than acceptable in all ways, he turned to Race happily._

_He wanted to give Race a hug, they both knew, but Patrick still felt his upbringing intruding on his happiness, and so he just thanked Race formally with words and a handshake._

_Shoving the cane through a belt loop, Patrick turned his attention to Race.  "Tell me about being a newsie, Race.  What's it like?"_

_Racetrack hoisted himself onto a pile of cloth, and pulled out a cigarette.  Sticking it into his mouth, he felt around for a lighter.  "Well," he spoke around the cigarette, "it's good sometimes and bad sometimes.  On good days, ya can make around two whole bucks, and we're all pals, ya know? We stick out for each other, watch each other's backs.  It's almost like... family, Spot.  Yeah.  They'se the best friends I could ever have.  'Course, we ain't gonna be newsies forever, and someday, we'se all gonna move on, but  bein' a newsie gives you a home if you ain't got one."  He noticed the way the young boy was looking up at him starry-eyed and quickly decided to change his tune.  "Bein' a newsie ain't all that fun either, kid.  Durin' the summer, it's broilin', and durin' the winter, it's so cold ya might freeze, but you gotta work outside, so you got nowhere to go and get outta the weather unless you take a break from sellin' – which might lose ya money.  Also, Spot, we ain't rich.  To people like your pop, we'se the lowest of the low.  We'se a bunch of orphans and runaways with nothin' to our name our name but what we got on our back, and sometimes we ain't even got that.  It's not an easy life."_

_"Easy?" Patrick scowled.  "Yesterday, my mother thought she was __St.__ Paul and then my father came home and beat her to get her to stop babbling, and then he almost beat me.  You think my life's easy__, Race? I'd rather have less clothes and more nice people. 'Sides," he added, aping Race's speech, "ya all git ta talk like however ya want, don't ya? I'se thinkin' bein' a newsie'd be kinda fun."_

_Race smiled slightly, but there was a bit of worry underneath.  "Look, kid, I know you got a bum rap with your folks, but you shouldn't do somethin' drastic.  You sound fine just the way you is.  I talk like this 'cause I ain't never learned to talk differently, right?"_

_"If I were a newsie, though," Patrick continued, "I'd get to sell papers with you, wouldn't I, Race? And I could be Spot to _everyone_.  I never liked being 'Patrick.'  Mother named me after some dead saint."_

_Race shrugged.  He'd gone this far in indulging Patrick, and it wasn't as if the kid was about to run away from home.  He was a brave kid and he was unhappy in his home, sure, but he was still too much of a spoiled kid to make that decision._

_"Yeah, sure, Spot," he said.  "'Course, your last name don't sound right.  'Spot O'Connell'? Nah.  Maybe if ya mixed up the letters a bit, or somethin', it might be better."_

_"And I could sell papers with you, Race.  You're my friend, right?"_

_"Yeah, kid, you'se—"_

_Suddenly, there was a commotion outside.  Both of their heads snapped towards the door as it crashed open, and the large figure of Thomas O'Connell loomed in the doorway._

_"What the _hell_ is going on in here?" he roared.  His furious gaze took in the smoky room, the littered cigarettes, Patrick's terrified expression, and Race's outward calm.  Seeming to decide on the worst of the two evils, he focused his rage on Race.  "You're an employee here?"_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"And so, you spend _my_ time, _my_ money, sitting in this room, which belongs to me_, smoking up a storm inside _my__ warehouse when you should be working?" O'Connell was clearly furious._

_"Well, sir—"_

_"I don't want to hear it, you filth!" O'Connell yelled.  "You're fired.  Get out!"_

_Patrick stared at his father, mouth open, in shock at the quickness of it all.  One moment, he was in here joking with Race, the next moment his father stormed through the door and fired Race without another word.  Patrick couldn't even look at Race, shamed as he was.  _It's all my fault, isn't it? _He knew he had to speak up for Race.  After all, if it weren't for him, Race wouldn't be in this mess._

_"F—father?" he stammered.  "You sh—shouldn't fire him."  He finally chanced a glance at Race, who was hanging his head and shaking it slightly.  "It was r—really my fault."_

_"You."  His father looked furious.  He barely glanced at Race and muttered, "Get out of here."_

_One thing to be said for Race, he was definitely smart.  When told to get, he got.  As he left, he quickly squeezed Patrick's shoulder reassuringly.  Patrick wanted to shout after him, but knew that doing that would only make things worse.  So he just sat there, waiting for whatever was coming next.  His father paced back and forth in front of him for a moment, silently._

_When he spoke, his voice was quiet, which was even more dangerous.  "What have you been up to, boy? Is this where you've been disappearing to all this time?"_

_Patrick was terrified.  "I... He's my friend, and I didn't want to bother you, Father—"_

_"Like hell!"_

_It was strange.  He knew that his father was getting at something, but he really wasn't quite sure _what._  What was wrong with him being friends with Race?_

_"Like a girl," his father muttered.  "Like a damn girl.  Isn't it enough that she bore a boy who looks like a girl?"_

_"Father—"_

_"You're unnatural! Disgusting! You're not a boy!"_

_Patrick blanched even further.  "What do you—I am a boy! I'm your son, Patrick!"_

_"You are not my son."  His father stalked over to the window, gripping the sides of the sill.  "You look like a girl and you engage in unnatural behavior with a piece of filth employee." He spat the last word.  "You're not my son.  Now get the hell out of my sight."_

_Gripping the cane as though it were the only thing keeping him alive, Patrick ran out of the room, panicked.  He wasn't quite sure where he was going.  Pulling the key to the room out of his pocket – he had "borrowed" it from his father one night – he clutched it to his heart.  _

_He found himself outside the warehouse, blinking in the sunlight, dimly remembering what he and Race had been talking about.  _I could go be a newsie with Race! I really could!_ Unnoticed tears ran down his cheeks.  _I can't go home.  I can go be a newsie, right? They could be my family.  Couldn't they?_ He had to find Racetrack._

_"Race!" he called.  "Race, where are you?" He rotated, his young eyes taking in the busy street around him.  "Race!" he screamed, as loud as he could.  "Where _are_ you!?"  There was no response, no sight of Race.  Patrick was alone, totally alone.  The panic began to return.  He clutched the cane in one hand till his knuckles were white and the key in the other, sure it was leaving marks.  _

_There were people everywhere, scary-looking people, and none of them were Race.  He ran a few feet in one direction, then stopped, and ran in the other, not at all sure where to go or what to do.  Finally he sat down in the middle of the street and began crying.  He didn't cry for long though.  _Weakness!_ rang out in his head.  Shameful!__ He said it was all right to cry, but then he deserted me.  _Forcing the tears to stop, he took a deep, shuddering breath_.  I'll never let anyone catch me crying again.  _

_Still half-heartedly calling Race's name, Patrick stood up and trudged down the street.  "You didn't wait for me," he whispered.  "You left."_

_"Boy? Boy? You all right?"_

_He glanced up, finding a woman looking at him.  She clearly wasn't as rich as his parents, but neither was she poor.  _No_, he mentally corrected himself, she's not as rich as those people I knew.  I have no parents._  At the thought, tears sprang anew, but he coldly forced them away.__

_"Yeah, I—I'se all right," he managed in return.  "Only I got kinda lost is all."_

_She crouched down next to him.  "Where's your home?"_

_"Where the newsies is," he replied, the words coming easier this time.  "I'se a newsie.  Can you help me find 'em?"_

_The woman looked around them.  "Well, I'm not sure... I think there are a lot of them in that direction."  She pointed._

_He gripped his cane proudly.  "Thank ya, ma'am.  Spot's the name."  He paused.  _I'm not O'Connell anymore.  Mix the letters up a bit..._  "Spot...Spot Conlon!" Patrick blurted.  _

_"Well, Spot Conlon," she said, sounding amused, "Good luck finding your friends."_

_He tipped a non-existent hat to her and strolled off down the street in the directions she had indicated, feeling stronger every second.  _Spot Conlon, _he chanted mentally.  Spot Conlon, Spot Conlon, I'm Spot now, Spot Conlon...___

"Spot?"

He looked up at Racetrack.  Though he had barely been able to believe it, he was taller than Racetrack now.

"What?"

"What happened to ya? I'se heard stories, of course, 'bout how the mighty Spot beat Blue, but how'd ya end up like..._this_?" He gestured all around him.

"None of your business, Race.  You wasn't there, so I had to make myself on my own."

Racetrack twisted his head and stared at him.  "Is _that what this is all about?"  Spot opened his mouth to reply, but Race cut him off.  "Talk _real_, kid.  For once, stop bein' a fake, and talk real."_

Spot shook his head, almost despairingly as lightning flashed nearby.  It had been so long since he'd spoken without a newsie accent that he barely even remembered how he had spoken without it.  Suddenly moved, without quite knowing why, he opened his mouth and formed the words as carefully as he could.  They sounded strange coming from his mouth, and yet so familiar.

"Is _what what this is all about, Race?"_

Having apparently won a small victory, the corner of Race's mouth turned up.  "That I wasn't there, kid."

"_Yes!" Spot snapped.  "If you'd only waited for a few minutes before running off, I could've—" He choked slightly.  "You deserted me, Racetrack, left me to face __everything.  Then I went to Manhattan to meet the newsies there, and there you were, looking so comfortable and happy when _I'd _nearly starved on the streets before I learned how to sell.  You didn't even recognize me, did you? You changed my life, ruined what I had, forced me onto the streets, and didn't even stay to help or recognize me."_

Race was somewhat staggered by Spot's onslaught.  "I recognized ya," he said softly.

"W—what?"

"I recognized ya right away, Spot.  It hadn't been more than a year, and I don't forget people.  What I didn't recognize was the look on your face.  You looked so angry and bitter.  I never saw that look on your face before, even when you was angriest at your pop."

"Maybe I had a right to be angry and bitter," Spot replied, too confused to be angry.  "Why didn't you say something to me?"

Racetrack laughed grimly.  "In case you don't recall, you made it perfectly clear that I weren't to say a word to you.  But that ain't what I came here to talk 'bout."

Spot stood up, shoving the chair out of the way and looked Race full in the face.  "Fine.  What _did_ you come here for, then?"

"You was a good kid, Patrick," Race said quietly, ignoring Spot's snarled, _"Don't call me that!"  "You was almost like a little brother for a while.  A bit of a temper, yeah, but you had common sense.  Now you'se makin' your newsies starve to defend you.  That ain't right."_

"It's not to defend _me," Spot shot back, peeved.  "Why don't any of you get it? They're defending themselves and each other.  Blue ain't the best guy for a kid to face in a fight," he continued, slipping back into newsie dialect.  "When he comes, I don't want none of my boys to get hurt for me."_

"You was plenty willin' to risk 'em durin' the strike," Race pointed out.

"That was a cause.  This ain't.  This is between me and Blue."

"And your pride keeps ya from findin' him and getting' it over with, huh?"  Spot stiffened, so Race knew that he'd hit a nerve.  "For someone who cares so much 'bout his boys, you let your pride do an awful lot of the talkin', kid."

Spot glared impotently at him, but before he could respond, there was a frantic knock at the door.  "Spot! Spot! It's Blue! He's here, outside, yellin' for ya!"

"Comin'," Spot said quietly, dangerously.  He shoved his cane into his belt loop, never taking his eyes off of Racetrack.  "Race," he said, then paused, the sound of the rain the only sound in the room.  "I thought of you as a big brother.  But you should've waited for me.  Anything I am that you don't like, it's 'cause of you.  Think 'bout that."

Then, outwardly calm and ready for battle, he stormed out of the room, leaving Racetrack all alone.


	6. six

The sky was dark with clouds and the rain thunked heavily off of Spot's hat as he casually stepped outside of the warehouse, his icy eyes scanning everything he saw around him.

First and foremost, there was Blue, standing about twenty feet away, staring coldly at him through the pouring rain, completely soaked, but not seeming to care.  There was a strange bulge in his shirt, and Spot noted it, his lips thinning.

Behind Blue was a huge crowd of Spot's newsies, pushing each other and whispering indistinctly.  More and more were arriving every moment, likely having been alerted that the big showdown was to take place very soon.  Spot refused to allow that to rattle him.  After all, it only meant that more of his boys would witness Blue's crushing defeat.  Nor did he allow the fact that a few of the boys were looking very chummy with Blue to disturb him.

After all, what did any of that matter? He would win, like he always had won, and he would again be undisputed ruler of Brooklyn.

Spot let his eyes look appraisingly over Blue's body, knowing that everyone saw his every move.  Blue hadn't changed much.  To a ten year old boy, he had appeared huge, but to the fifteen year old, he wasn't so big anymore.  He was still taller than Spot was, of course, but that didn't scare him anymore.  Blue's muscles were nothing special, either.  Oh, he had them, definitely, but they weren't big enough to be a real threat to Spot, and they were just big enough that they might slow him down.  Spot prided himself on his speed, and he knew with certainty that he could just dance circles around Blue.

Finally, Spot let his eyes settle on Blue's face and linger insolently on the scar.  A deep gouge that had run from his eye all the way to his chin, it stood out crimson in Blue's pale face.  His eyes were every bit as icy as Spot's, though a trace of angry color rose up his neck at Spot's gaze.

"So, Blue," Spot drawled, his voice calm, though it carried to every newsie on the street, "That scar turned out real good.  Makes you look as though you was really a man.  I hope it don't still hurt too much."

Blue's already thin lips pinched together even more, and his fists clenched.  He replied, his voice low and gravelly, "How 'bout the scar that I gave you, Spot? It don't scare the girls away too much, I hope."

Spot felt a muscle twitch, despite his considerable self-control.  "It don't even show, Blue," he said, his voice deceptively friendly.  "I guess you wasn't strong enough to leave a real mark."

Blue chose not to respond to that.  "So, little Spotty's gone and gotten tall.  Has he also learned how to fight?"

"You ain't heard?" Spot arched an eyebrow.  "I'se the best fighter in Manhattan, and more.  Where you been? Down in the sewers?" He laughed scornfully.  "Anyway, I'se sure willin' to give you another demonstration, if you really want it so much."

"'Another' demonstration? If you was to do the same thing you did last time, I'se gonna be back to controllin' Brooklyn again by the end of the day."

Spot was vaguely aware of Racetrack stepping out of the warehouse behind him and tactfully sliding away to the side somewhere.  Somehow, knowing that Race was listening to Blue's crap made him furious.  "Ya thought that last time, didn't ya, ya bum?! By the end of the day _last time_, you couldn't see through the blood," he said, his voice finally beginning to lose its smoothness and calmness.

"You was a weak little shrimp then, like you'se a weak little shrimp now," Blue sneered.  "Ya only won 'cause you cheated."

Spot swallowed, taking a deep breath and readying himself.  It was time to end this taunting.  "If we'se gonna talk about _cheatin__', Blue, maybe you should take the __gun outta your pocket."_

Newsies muttered, straining for a look at Blue, edging back slightly as his mouth curved upwards and he took the weapon out of his shirt.  Spot was proud of his boys.  A gun was an intimidating thing, but all they did was move back a couple of inches, staring daggers at Blue.  If Blue felt their chilly glares, he didn't show it.

"Okay, Spotty-boy," Blue said, his voice agreeable.  He tossed the gun to the ground a few feet away.  Spot nodded and Crumbs, who was standing mere feet from the gun, quickly picked it up and melted back into the crowd.  "After all," Blue continued, "I don't need it to beat ya, do I? I only have it in case the bulls come after me.  I'se a wanted man, boy."

"Wanted? For what?" a random voice called out from the crowd.  Spot's gaze snapped to the area the shout had come from, and he glared at all the boys there.  _This is between me and Blue, dammit! Don't butt in and don't encourage him._

"Murder, boys!" Blue called back exuberantly.  "Some Joe got in my way."  Though he shouted to the crowd, his eyes were glued to Spot, to see his reaction.  It took an effort, but Spot kept his face blank.  

"Enough of this!" Spot yelled before the newsies had time to react.  "Blue, ya came here to make fool outta yourself, and I'se tired of waiting."

A grin twisted Blue's lips.  "I'se tired of waitin' too, Spot."  He shrugged in mock regret.  "I coulda been here sooner if you'd not posted boys at every turn."

Spot didn't deign to reply.  He merely smiled and pulled his cane out of his belt loop, ready to club Blue, should he rush him.  Despite the rain, his grip on the cane was sure and steady.  A small flush of excitement hummed through his veins, making every muscle feel alive, and ready.

The same excitement was in Blue's eyes as the two started to circle each other, slowly, watching and waiting for a weakness, the rain pounding down all around them.  Around them, the newsies were making noise, lots of noise: cheering Spot on, jeering Blue, and betting each other on the outcome of the fight, though there were very, _very few boys willing to bet on Blue.  In fact, the only few who did were boys who hadn't been in Brooklyn five years before._

_They're my boys, Blue! Mine, you hear that? Listen... It's me they're betting on, cheering for.  Not you.  They _never_ wanted you, not once they had me.  Spot's grin grew into a wide smile, one he knew would make Blue uncomfortable.  __And who am I to disappoint my newsies?_

Against his will, his eyes were drawn to Racetrack, now standing directly opposite him.  Race didn't look happy, but that was no surprise.  His back was slouched, his hands tightly crammed into his pockets.  And his eyes held a clear message: _Do you _really_ need to do this, Spot? Is this for your boys or for your pride?_

Spot forced his gaze away to focus on Blue again, who luckily hadn't noticed his lapse.  Race had used to be his friend, but he couldn't let regret distract him from the task at hand.  He just kept circling and circling, around and around.

Finally, he sensed a moment, barely anything, but a moment when Blue's eyes slid elsewhere, and it was enough.

Letting out a bloodthirsty yell, Spot dove at Blue.  Caught off-guard, Blue only managed to move just enough to keep the gold end of the cane from crashing into his face.  Instead, it merely glanced off of his shoulder, but with such force behind it, Blue still staggered for a moment.  

Spot didn't give him time to recover.  As Blue wobbled, he followed up his first strike with a blow to the stomach.  The older boy grabbed his abdomen and bent over.

A few of the boys started hooting, thinking it was already over, but Spot had no such delusions.  As Blue came up from his huddled position with a swing of his fist, Spot easily danced out of the way.  Blue's next swing was a bit luckier, knocking Spot's hat off of his head.

Both boys paused momentarily, Spot blinking through the rain that suddenly poured into his eyes.  He stared balefully at Blue, who had a malicious smile on his face.

"What say, Spot?" he said, only slightly out of breath.  "You wanna pick up your hat?"

For a few seconds, all attention was on the hat lying crumpled in the mud between Spot and Blue.  Spot stared down at his hat.  _Do I want to pick up my hat? Yeah, and let Blue have a clear shot at me while I'm bent over?_ Spot blinked fiercely, trying to clear his vision.

"Nah," he said casually.  Then without giving Blue a moment to respond, Spot rushed at him again, swinging his cane as hard as he could.  Blue caught the end of the cane and tried to trip Spot.

The next few minutes were confusing as the two combatants grappled in the mud, swiping at each other, pulling at each other, hitting as best they could.  The newsies around them yelled in excitement, the energy in the air growing ever more and more explosive, but Racetrack watched in silence. It was still possible to hear the grunts of pain, even above the cries of the crowd.  Race had been in quite a few fights in his time, and he never forgot how much each fist across the face stung.  He glanced around.  The Brooklyn boys knew what it was to fight too, but this was Spot, their leader, not Patrick, his friend and little brother.

He didn't like being too sentimental, but it was hard to equate this vicious person in front of him with the small boy who needed to cry so badly that the sobs had nearly torn through him.

"This ain't why I gave you that cane," he muttered.  Then suddenly furious, Race yelled, "This _ain't why I gave you that cane!"_

Somehow, his voice cut above all of the other noise and one of the mud-splattered fighters tore himself from the other, clouting him on the head, staggering to his feet.  The other figure lay groaning on the ground.  Knowing that something had happened, but not being sure what, not sure whether it was over or not, the other newsies slowly quieted in confusion.

Despite the mud caked on his face and the cheek that was already visibly swelling, Spot's blue eyes stared straight at Race, ignoring the rain dripping from his eyelashes and running into his eyes, and the look in them could have frozen flames.  "Then why _did_ you give it to me?" he snarled, suddenly beyond caring who heard him, beyond caring who knew anything or everything.  "To stay beneath my father's feet, to starve to death on the streets? You gave a cane to a pathetic _child, and he turned around and made himself into a __king with it!" He punctuated the sentence with a kick to Blue's stomach, who collapsed back into the mud._

"I gave it to you so you could be a _man_," Race retorted, his voice as angry as Spot had ever heard it.  

Beneath them, Blue began to struggle to his feet, as much the worse for the wear as Spot was.  Giving Race one final look of contempt, he raised his cane, knowing that the next blow would be the last: Blue would go down for good.  Seeing the same, the whispering newsies fell silent, waiting for the end, for Spot to force Blue out of Brooklyn once and for all.

There was a moment where time was almost frozen, where the tableau could have lasted forever and Spot could have remained silently holding his cane above Blue's head like a club.

In the instant before the cane was to bash Blue's skull, an eerie scream ripped across the street.  It was like nothing they'd heard before, like a banshee, a high, thin voice screaming in utter agony a single name.  _"Paaaaaaatrick!"_

The response was immediate.  His concentration broken, Spot's head snapped around in horror, desperately searching for the search of a voice he had thought – no, had hoped that he would never hear again.  _Mother...?_

The newsies looked around to, all of them finding a single figure: a woman, standing on the street, thin form under a soaked dress and sopping hair, a woman who was staring at Spot as though a ghost and her fondest dream had suddenly come to her.

 Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the ghostly wail still echoing through the streets, Blue found a hidden reserve of strength, hauled off, and punched Spot right across the face.

Pain blossomed as Spot's head snapped to the side.  He wobbled, but managed to launch a blind fist in Blue's direction.  It didn't land, and Spot stumbled forward, thrown off balance, his cane falling from his limp hand.

He felt a fist smack across his face, again and again.  Finally, he fell to his knees, lost in a red haze of pain, feeling the rain trickling painfully across his broken skin.  Grabbing Spot's collar, Blue threw him hard to the ground, straddling him.  Fists pounded across his face, over and over.

He was vaguely aware of his boys yelling in the background, of a woman's scream, but more than anything else, he heard Racetrack shouting his name.  The strange thing was that he could no longer tell if it was his real name or his newsie name that was echoing in Race's panicked voice.

Then he saw through blurry eyes the gleaming knife in Blue's hand, and a gunshot echoed in his ears as he fell down into darkness and it enveloped him...


	7. seven

Awareness returned slowly, and with it, came the pain.  He couldn't really remember anything, not who he was, or what he'd done to deserve this.  All he knew was that he was in a hell of a lot of pain.  Well, that, and that he couldn't seem to open his eyes.

What he could do, though, was groan.  Or at least, he tried.  Though he meant to let loose with the deepest, most heartfelt, and most pathetic groan that had ever been heard, all that emerged from his dried and chapped lips was a kind of wheezing noise.

"Shhhhh," someone whispered above him.  "Don't try to speak."

_I'm not trying to speak_, he thought with some vague irritation.  At the same time that the low whisper reached him, he realized that his head wasn't lying on the bare ground – rather, something was cushioning him.

With a great deal of effort, and a not inconsiderable amount of time, he managed to force his eyes open slightly.  No matter how he tried, they wouldn't seem to open any more.  Frustrated, he tried to widen them, but they just wouldn't give.

By the time the blurry shapes around him slowly resolved themselves into vision that was at least reasonably clear, he was no longer paying attention to the struggle to open his eyes.  Instead, he stared with a growing sense of horror at the face that looked back into his.

"Welcome back, darling," his mother said.

And with a flash, it all came back to him: Blue and Race, the fight, the storm...and now he was lying with his head on his mother's lap.

More shocked than he could ever remember being, a soundless scream escaped Spot's mouth as, despite his numerous hurts, his body desperately tried to jerk away from his mother.

He didn't get far; in fact, he only ended up rolling several feet, trying not to register the added pain that came when his head left his mother's lap and crashed against the floor.  _God, everything hurts.  Even my throat._  

His mother rose to her feet, hurrying over to hover above him.  "Darling? Patrick? Are you all right? Patrick, speak to me!"

Spot, levering himself up with his arms despite the howling from abused muscles, glared at her from eyes that were nearly swollen shut with bruises.  She looked exactly as he had remembered her looking: slender, with long light brown hair, and a skinny face.  The only thing that he didn't remember was how like a bird she had become: how nervous and twittery, how her hands fluttered vainly.  Even when she had become ill, he had still thought of her as strong; now she just seemed... ineffective.  

"What're _you doin' here?" he rasped through a raw throat, then winced at the pain speaking brought.  "You was in a loony bin last I heard."  _

She blinked.  "Well, yes, I _was, but—" She broke off at the anger in his nonexistent voice.  "Aren't you happy to see me, Patrick darling?" _

"Like hell I am," he ground out, pushing himself to his feet.  _Pain is weakness.  He wobbled, his head spinning, but somehow managed to keep his feet.  _

"Oh, _Patrick," she cried out.  "Don't hold it inside.  These last years on the streets must have been simply _horrible_ for you! I vowed before God that I'd make it up to you if He only would let me find you, and my prayers were answered, weren't they?"_

She looked up at him desperately, and it was then that he realized that he had finally grown taller than his mother.  _Father would have been proud.  Spot would have laughed if it would not have hurt so much.  Not liking the turn his thoughts were taking, he looked away from her.  __Where am I? The room looked familiar, but within his spinning head, he couldn't place it.  He tried so hard to remember, but it just made his head pound worse.  _

Though he hated admitting that he didn't know, he asked, "Where am I?"

From the doorway came a cool voice.  "You'se in the Manhattan Lodging House, Spot, and you don't know how lucky you is to be alive, do ya?"

Turning his head delicately, Spot was less than surprised (and more than grateful) to see Racetrack standing in the doorway.

"R...Race," he said weakly, trying to stand up straighter.  But it couldn't last.  His body was being held up so stiffly that it felt like it was about to shatter into a million pieces.  Finally, he leaned against the wall for support, trying like hell to act as though he were doing it casually, insolently.

Race, however, was not fooled.  He noted the lines of pain on Spot's battered face and the relief as he lightened the load on his feet.  "You been through a hell of a lot, kid," he said gently.  He walked over to help Spot sit back down without hurting himself.  And for perhaps the first time ever, Spot accepted his help.

"How did I get here?" the younger boy rasped, desperately trying to ignore his mother's gaze.

"We got you here," Race answered.  "Your mom and me, that is."

Spot's mother hurried over to join them.  "It was so frightening, Patrick! It was raining and you were bleeding _everywhere_."

"That so?" Spot frowned, feeling a spot on his lip break open and start bleeding lightly.

Visibly relieved to get a less-than-angry response from her son, she hastily said, "Oh, yes! I—we—weren't sure that you would make it."  Despite his mother's hungry gaze, it was Racetrack who took a small rag and blotted the blood on Spot's lip.

Spot said only one word, and Race understood exactly what he wanted to know.  _"How?"_

Race sighed, sitting down next to Spot.  "Well, you lost the fight, Spot."  Spot winced.  Though he had known that already – how could he not have, after all? – it still hurt to hear it.  "Blue was sittin' on top of you, beatin' your bloody head off.  Do... do ya remember anythin'?"

Spot met his gaze.  "I remember you screamin' my name, Race."

Race nodded.  "That's all? You missed a lot, then.  So Blue was beatin' on ya, and then he pulled a knife.  Don't worry," he added hastily, seeing the look in Spot's eyes, "he didn't stab you with it.  Oh, he was _gonna__, 'course, but one of your boys – the one who picked up Blue's gun – well, he shot the knife right outta Blue's hands."  He shook his head.  "Damn fine aim."_

Spot grinned painfully.  "We does a lot of slingshot practice over in Brooklyn.  Never know when you'se gonna need it."

Remembering how Spot's newsies had shown up during the strike with their slingshots, rescuing the Manhattan boys from a certain beating as if by magic, Racetrack nodded.  "Yeah.  So the knife's lyin' on the ground.  Blue... Well, he don't like that none.  Since he don't have his knife, he starts trying to strangle you... and you wasn't fightin' back so much at that point."

"That would explain why my throat hurts so much, eh?"

"Probably."

"So how'd I get away? I mean, we," Spot amended reluctantly, remembering that his mother was there too.

Race rubbed the back of his neck, as though embarrassed.  "I pulled him off of you, Spot."

"You?!" Spot was surprised.  Not that Race wasn't a decent guy, but—Well, it had been awfully nice of Race to risk bodily harm for something he wasn't involved in.  "You was lookin' out for me, huh?" he said softly.  Despite his gratitude for Race, there was a small twinge of hurt: _Why didn't any of my boys pull Blue off of me? Why did it have to be the newsie from __Manhattan__? The one who had nothing to lose?_

As though Racetrack were reading Spot's mind, he said, "Most of your boys was fightin' by then."

"_Fightin__'?" Spot glowered, the effect made more ominous by the fact that he couldn't open his eyes more than halfway, if that.  "And who was they fightin', huh? Who was there to fight?"_

"Each other."

Spot froze.  _Impossible._  Not each other.  No.__

"Apparently," Race said gently, "some of the boys was kinda rootin' for Blue to win, Spot.  So when you went down, they started shovin' the boys around them, and the boys who wanted you to win started shovin' back, and then everyone was fightin'.  Then I pulled you outta the fightin', and your ma helped me get you over the bridge to Manhattan.  For a while, I didn't know if you was gonna wake up or not."

"Ya dragged me outta Brooklyn," Spot said softly.  "So...so...what's happenin'..."

"Blue's got Brooklyn," Race said flatly.  "It's been about three days, and he's got 'em firmly under his thumb."

This, Spot refused to accept.  "No.  No, he don't."

"Sorry, Spot, but he does."

"No!" Spot came as close to yelling as he was able.  "Brooklyn's _mine_! He—he can't, you hear me, Race?"

Race looked as sad as Spot had ever seen him.  "Spot, ya gotta accept it.  Right now, Brooklyn ain't yours."

"'Course it—" Spot froze, as his hand went down to his side instinctively to draw his cane and wave it around.  "Race," he said slowly.  "Race, where's my cane?"

"You— you dropped it," Race replied carefully, watching Spot's face become pallid under the vivid bruises.  "Spot... he has it now."

"What...?" Spot whispered.  "You'se kiddin', Race.  You'se just jokin' with me.  Really, _where's my cane?_"

Race grabbed Spot's arms and stared straight into his eyes.  Spot winced from the pain of Race's hands on his arms, but neither moved.  "It's in Brooklyn, Spot.  And it's probably in Blue's hands right this second."

Never mind that his throat was killing him, never mind that Race's face was merely inches away and his crazy mother was hovering overhead, never mind _anything_.

Spot screamed.  He was barely even aware that he was screaming; the animal sound seemed to be issuing from someone else's throat.  _Poor bastard,_ he thought vaguely.  _Sounds like he's in a lot of pain.__  Something really bad must've happened._

Slowly, he became aware that _he was the poor bastard, but he couldn't seem to stop screaming.  __My cane, echoed through his head.  _My cane, my cane, mycanemycanemycane...__

Race pulled away, clapping his hands over his ears.  Spot's mother tried to put her arms around him, but when he pushed her away violently, she also shied away, her hands pressed to her heart.  Other newsies were starting to run up to the attic to see what the commotion was.  

He wanted to stop screaming, he wanted to stop being stupid and weak, and stupid stupid _stupid__, _god, I'm stupid, I lost my cane, and it was all I had, all I had all I had, and now I have nothing, not even Brooklyn, 'cause that's gone, isn't it? I have nothing left, nothing, nothing nothing...__

Having recovered from the initial shock, Racetrack tried to be heard above Spot's screams.  "Spot? Spot, it's all right! We'se gonna get it back, yeah? We'se gonna get it all back!"  He tried to wave away all of the concerned newsies who were crowding in the doorway, staring at Spot.

Finally, the scream began to die.  Not that Spot felt any better, of course, but he couldn't breathe.  As the sound died away to nothing and he gasped for air, the others in the room started to relax a bit, but they tensed up again when Spot stumbled to his feet, and pushed his way through the amazed crowd of Manhattan newsies.  

"Dammit," he choked out in a voice filled with rage and despair.  "Dammit!" 

Stumbling to his feet, he pushed his way through the amazed crowd of Manhattan newsies.  His faltering steps led him down the stairs, wanting nothing more than to be out, away, alone.  But when he reached the way out, he froze.  

_I can't leave.  I can't go outside, not like this.  Everyone will know, they'll look at me, and they'll stare.  'There goes the girly boy who couldn't hold on to what was his.' They'll _all_ know.  I can't go outside, I can't leave, I'm stuck here, and __Brooklyn__'s gone and my cane's gone—_

"Spot," Race said from right behind him.  "Don't go yet.  We'se gonna figure out somethin', yeah? You and me and Jack, and maybe some of the others, we'se gonna figure out something."

"Why?" Spot said despairingly.  "What's the point? I lost it all.  You think I'm a fake, and you don't like me.  And I am a fake, if I couldn't even win one measly little fight! And now my _mother—_" He took a deep breath.  "I gotta get outta here."

"Is that what you _want, Patrick?" Race looked steadily at Spot as he slowly pivoted to face the older boy.  "I don't think it is.  I think what you want is your cane and Brooklyn.  You leavin' here and goin' straight to get them back, are ya?"_

"I...Maybe I'd leave New York—"

"Don't be an idiot," Race interrupted.  "That ain't what you want.  Look, kid, maybe you don't do things in the way that I would, but you ain't really a fake.  You'se a bit...strange, yeah, but you care about the boys over in Brooklyn, don't you?" Spot nodded slowly.  "You ain't the same as you used to be, or maybe you kind of are – I don't really know – but you are what you are.  You'se Patrick, _and_ you'se Spot.  And I don't think that Spot wants to go be a martyr and slink away from what he wants, 'cause that ain't like him, is it? Spot wants to go and take back what's his.  If you go and leave town, you'se gonna hate yourself for it for the rest of your life."  Spot was still, frozen in indecision.  Race added one thing more, just one: "If I didn't like ya, I wouldn't have come to Brooklyn at all, let alone risked my good looks to save your ungrateful hide."  He grinned slightly.

Spot turned around.  Despite his swollen, multicolored face, there was a determination that Race hadn't seen there moments before, a new fire.  "That the truth?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah.  I wouldn't say it if it wasn't."

"Listen, Race," Spot said, still softly, aware that their audience was peeking from behind the staircase, "and listen good.  I don't need no one: not Manhattan, not my ma, not even you.  I go it alone, and that's what I've been doin' for the past five years.  If it comes right down to it, I don't even need my Brooklyn boys.  I ain't their king for _me_.  I'se their king for _them_.  Got that?" Race nodded, still not sure what Spot was getting at.  "All the same... Thanks.  For all of it."  He took a deep breath.  "You're right.  I gotta go take back what's mine."


	8. eight

It was cold outside, but from the way Spot carried himself, passersby had to blink and look a second time, just to make sure that their eyes weren't deceiving them and that the skinny boy angrily striding past them wasn't wearing a thick, fur-lined coat.  In that instant, when they looked at him a second time, they noticed the bruises, the cuts, and the limp he was trying to disguise.

And some people looked a third time, recognizing the erstwhile King of Brooklyn, the one and only Spot Conlon whom, rumor had it, had nearly been beaten to death and couldn't show his face in his territory for fear.

Spot hated those people who looked a third time more than he hated anyone else...except for Blue and his father, of course.

With a muttered curse, he ducked into the Lodging House and thumped straight up to the attic, knowing that no one would dare disturb him up there.

But when he slammed the door and whirled around, he wasn't alone.  Race was sitting in the corner, a cloud of cigar smoke surrounding his head.  Spot exhaled and realized that he wasn't _really_ surprised to find Race up here.

Race spoke lazily around the cigar in his mouth.  "Need to cry, kid?"

"Cry?" Spot scoffed.  "'Course not.  I don't cry."

The dark brown eyes eyed him sardonically.  "Next time you say that, try to keep your chin from shakin'."

"My chin _ain't_ shakin'" Spot replied frostily.  

"Cryin' ain't a bad thing.  Haven't I told ya that before?"

"Fine, fine," Spot glared.  "Then let's see you do it."

"Me?"

"'Course.  If it ain't a bad thing, why don't you do it? You'se an orphan, Race, right? You'se poor.  You'se nineteen years old, but you still look like you're twelve.  And," Spot paused with a flourish, "you ain't that good of a gambler.  So how come you don't cry?"

"Who says I don't?"

"Huh?" Spot blinked, thrown off balance by Race's quiet question.

"You'se right, kid—"

"—Don't call me _kid_—"

"—My life ain't that great.  I keep getting' older, and what've I done with my life? I sell papes just to keep myself from starvin' to death.  I win money off the other newsies, but then I go and blow it at the tracks.  I ain't educated, and the odds of me ever gettin' smart are pretty bum.  I'll never have a good job or a family.  It ain't fair.  Why should some guys have so much while we ain't got _nothin__'_? So what makes you think that I never cry?"

Spot leaned against the wall, feeling as though a weight were pressing against his chest.  He'd never heard Race speak so much about his feelings before.  The note of bitterness in the older boy's voice was also new.  He looked at Race as though he'd never looked at him before, noticing for the first time the weariness around the deep brown eyes, the brackets around the mouth that bespoke years of worry, the look of quiet despair that he'd always before identified as thoughtfulness.

"...Race, I—"

Race cut him off as though he hadn't even spoken.  "You ain't the only one bad things happen to, Spot.  They happen to all the rest of us too, so don't you go 'round thinkin' that you'se got some sort of special bad luck.  You ain't even the only guy nearly beat to death.  This is just the first time that you'se been on the receivin' end.  You'se been mopin' around this attic for a week now.  So what're you gonna do now?"

Spot was stung.  "I _tried_ to get back into Brooklyn."

Race snorted.  "You get turned away by your own boys at the bridge, so you give up? You come back here and lurk around this attic, avoiding everyone, but you'se just fine goin' out into the streets and seein' how people look at you so you can feel...can feel..._righteous_ in your anger and pity?" He pursed his lips, and exhaled a frustrated sigh through his nose.  "Tell me, Spot, how long are you gonna stay here?"

"You want me gone, huh?" Spot snarled, wishing desperately that he weren't still too sore to go punch Racetrack right in the cigar.  

"No."

Spot froze, the wind again taken out of his sails by that one word.  Suddenly immeasurably tired, he rubbed his aching eyes with a grubby hand.  "I don't understand ya, Racetrack.  Just speak straight.  For once, just speak straight."

"It ain't that I want you to go.  It's that _you_ wants you to go.  Ain't it, Spot?"

"_Do_ you want me to go?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"You didn't answer mine neither."

A tired grin curved Race's mouth.  "Yeah, but I asked first."

"Of _course_ I want to!" Spot slid down the wall to a sitting position.  "I want to go back to Brooklyn.  It's where I belong, Race."

Race closed his eyes briefly.  "So why'd ya give up? It ain't like you."

"I gave up 'cause Blue's got five of my own boys posted at the bridge and I can't get by 'em.  Not without my cane."

"So you can't use your fists.  So what?"

"So _what_?!" Spot exclaimed.  "So _everything_! I can't sneak by 'em, 'cause they know what I look like, and I can't soak 'em."

"You can't soak 'em alone."

"What, Race?" Spot mocked.  "You volunteerin' to come along? Wanna get your hands dirty? Or," he added, "are you volunteerin' the Manhattan boys? Since Brooklyn rescued you all durin' the strike?"

"We ain't nothin', Spot.  We could help."

"'We'? Barely any of you'se all is fit for it.  You think I want Boots or Snipeshooter at my back during a fight? Dutchy and Specs, if their glasses get knocked off, they'se worse than useless.  The Mouth, I bet he ain't never even thrown a punch in his life.  Mush'd start cryin' if he stepped on an ant.  _Crutchy_? Sure, I can see it now.  Why don't I just let Les be in charge?"  He snorted.  "Some of the older ones _might_ be all right...Snoddy, Pie-Eater, the Cowboy, Skittery...but there just ain't enough."

Race spoke flatly.  "We ain't cowards, Spot, and we take care of our own."

"Didn't say that you all was cowards.  I know you ain't.  But the Brooklyn boys are tough.  You know that.  They'se tough and there's a lot of 'em.  There ain't no way Manhattan can take 'em on, and I'll be damned if I'll let the lot of ya get the crud beaten out of you too."

"Thanks for the thought," Race said sarcastically, "but fightin' never scared you before, so why's it started to now?"

Spot drew in a deep breath.  "'Cause it was never fightin' my own boys before.  It ain't their fault that they gotta follow Blue's orders.  Well...most of 'em, anyway."

With a disbelieving laugh, Race replied, "That don't sound like you, Spot.  You never cared before who you had to soak, didja? You always just do what you gotta do, to hell with anyone else."

"I always do what's right for my boys," Spot said hotly.  "What kind of king would I be if—"

"—if you went 'round beatin' your own subjects?" At Spot's nod, Race continued, "You'd be like most of the kings in history, from what I been told, Spot."

Spot set his chin stubbornly.  "My boys told me they was real sorry, Race.  When they wouldn't let me in, they said that they was real sorry."

"And you believe 'em?"

"I know that I'se a better leader than Blue, and so do they."

Race rolled his eyes.  "You'se an idiot, but never mind.  So soakin' your boys is out of the question?"

"Yes.  And there ain't nothin' else.  Besides my fists, what've I got?"

Race stood up and dropped his cigar on the ground, grinding it out with his foot.  "Didn't I teach you nothin'? 'What've I got?'" he mocked.  "You got your brain, kid, and it's a damn good brain every now and then, so _use _it.  If ya can't bust into Brooklyn with fists swinging, then distract 'em and sneak in."

"Distract 'em..." Spot repeated slowly.  "How would I do that?"

Racetrack's face suddenly relaxed and he winked, looking young again.  "I ain't gonna do _all_ your thinking for you."

"Distract 'em..." Spot said again, all the gears in his head beginning to work.

Recognizing the fixated look on Spot's face, Racetrack walked over to the door as quietly as he could, hoping not to distract him, but as Race put his hand on the doorknob, Spot suddenly snapped back to the present and said, "Wait!"

"Yeah?" Race asked somewhat warily.

"You've never spoken to me like that before," Spot said quietly, the accent suddenly gone from his voice.

"You never deserved it so much before."

"Do...do the others know what you told me?"

"Which part?" Race asked, not liking this conversation one bit.

"The parts about...about how you feel."

"No."  Race turned his head to regard Spot silently.  "They'se all satisfied with my lies and I ain't gonna fix their mistake."

Spot suddenly switched topics.  "You never answered my question."

"What question?" 

"Do you want me to leave?"

Race smiled almost sadly.  "That don't matter.  You want to leave, and that's what matters, ain't it?"

Before Spot had the chance to object, the door had opened and closed quietly, leaving Spot alone with his thoughts and a vague yet comforting memory of cigar smoke.


	9. nine

"This'll never work," Dutchy hissed down to Spot.

"It'll work a lot better if you shut your mouth and stop squirming," Spot whispered back.

Dutchy didn't look happy at all, but he sat back and tried to look like he rode in carriages every day.  This, for Dutchy, meant sticking his nose in the air and trying to look down self-same nose at anyone he saw.

It looked ridiculous.

Spot groaned.  "This'll never work."

Dutchy glared down at him.  "You put me in these clothes, you put me in this carriage and you tell me to act like I'm rich.  Least you could do would be to act like we'se actually gonna get away with this."

Spot just shook his head.  _Use your head_, Race had said.  So yesterday, acting on a hunch, he'd done the last thing in the world that he'd wanted to do.

_It had been years since he'd seen this house.  To a child, it had always looked like a giant's mansion.  To Spot, it still looked disturbingly large.  However, he hadn't made his way up through the newsie ranks through cowardice, so with only a slight twitching of a muscle under his eye, he walked right up to the ornate front door and knocked loudly._

_While waiting for an answer, he pulled his hat off and slicked his hair back as smoothly as he could.  _

_Ever so slowly, the door crept open to reveal a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair.  "Yes?" he asked slowly, eyeing Spot.  "Can I help you?"_

_Spot clenched his teeth, fully aware of the way this man was looking at him.  He knew what the butler saw: a skinny boy in clothes that, to his epicurean eyes, were little more than rags, cold eyes, messy hair, and dirt caked under his nails.  _

_"Yeah," Spot replied coolly.  "I need to see the O'Brians."_

_"I see.  And... who shall I tell them is calling?" _

_Fully aware that this man was looking for a good excuse to throw this pathetic waste of life off of the property, Spot's fists automatically clenched._

_"Just tell them it's Patrick."_

_The butler's lips thinned until they were barely visible.  "Hardly amusing.  I'm terribly afraid that I have to ask you to leave.  If you go right now, there need be no incident."_

_"You think this is a _joke_?" Spot snarled, unconsciously dropping his accent and standing up straighter.  "If my grandparents find out that I came here and you didn't allow me access, there will be Satan to pay, so let me in and I won't mention this horrible breach of manners to them."  _

_The older man cleared his throat angrily.  "Mr. and Mrs. O'Brian mourn for their grandson every single day, boy.  If I were to allow an imposter like you through this door, it would be a blotch on my spotless record."_

_"My name is Patrick O'Connell and I _am_ the grandson of Mr. and Mrs. O'Brian.  You honestly think that my father's son would allow himself to do something as stupid as _die_?"_

_The butler's only reaction was to try to close the door.  Spot, however, having come this far, was not about to let some snooty middle-man stop him.  He put his hand on the closing door and pushed back.  Apparently surprised that the street urchin was stronger than he looked, the man hissed, "Go away! You're not getting into this house!"_

_"Like hell I'm not!" Spot shouted, having seen some movement in the house behind the butler._

_"Gregory?" a lilting woman's voice floated out.  "Who is that?"_

_"No one, madam!" the butler grunted, but his momentary distraction allowed Spot to get the upper hand in their pushing match, and the door flew open._

_Spot's momentum sent him sprawling to the gleaming wooden floor.  He shook his head dazedly, trying to spring to his feet with instincts honed by years of street fighting, but the butler was quicker than he looked.  Before Spot could defend himself, he found himself in a headlock, his head angled towards the floor so that he couldn't look up even if he wanted to._

_"Forgive me, madam!" the butler exclaimed.  "Let me remove this piece of trash from your home with my humblest apologies."_

_Afterwards, Spot would never know what she saw at that moment.  Perhaps it was his sandy brown hair, or maybe it was his piercing eyes, so like hers.  Maybe it was just the defiance in his posture.  Whatever it was though, before Spot could be bodily dragged from the house, she gasped, "Wait!"_

_"Madam?"___

_"Wait... Don't throw him out.  Let me see him."_

_Reluctantly, and none too gently, the butler grabbed Spot's hair and pulled back, forcing Spot to look straight forward.  He found himself looking into a face so familiar that for a moment, he actually thought that he had never run away.  She looked older, more worn, but there was no doubt about it: it was his grandmother._

_She seemed to recognize him too, because her eyes filled with tears, one of which overflowed and slid down her cheek, stopping in every wrinkle and line.  "Jaysus," she gasped, "Let go of him, Gregory!" The butler blinked.  "Let go right now!"_

_Although Gregory would clearly have much rather thrown Spot clear across the road, he had no choice but to comply.  Spot, on the other hand, was under no such delusions of self-control, and came up swinging.  He nailed the butler right in the jaw with his fist._

_As Gregory went wheeling back into the wall, clutching his chin, Spot stood up straight and looked defiantly at his grandmother.  "Sorry about that, Nana, but the man's a goon."_

_"Of course, of course," she sobbed, grabbing Spot in a tight hug.  "Oh, my wee boy, I thought I'd never see you again."_

_Spot hung uncomfortably in her embrace and was fully aware of the man with a bruise already forming on his jaw staring daggers at his back, but managed to awkwardly pat her on the back as she wept._

_After a very long moment, she seemed to regain control of herself and pulled away to look at him.  "How you've grown, Patrick!" she exclaimed, and started to grow teary-eyed again.  "However have you survived? Every day I've prayed that you would come home, every day!"_

_"It's all right, Nana," Spot muttered, embarrassed.  "I'm all right."_

_She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.  "Of course you are... Oh, look at you, you are your father's son indeed.  You must have his brilliant mind – that's how you survived."_

_Of all people in the world, his father was the person he most didn't want to hear about.  "Yeah, Nana.  Look, can we—"_

_"Oh, but I'll have to tell your grandfather!" she said excitedly.  "Cecil? Cecil! Cecil, come here!"  She paused and looked at their butler.  "For heaven's sake, Gregory, close the door and _try_ to make yourself useful.  Perhaps a spot of tea for my grandson?"_

_"It's really all right," Spot said.  "I don't drink tea—"_

_But it was too late.  She was already running up the stairs, calling to her husband.  And by the time a tall, distinguished-looking older man burst through a pair of mahogany doors, Spot had already prepared himself for another round of hugging and crying.  And once _that_ part was over, they both exclaimed over his cuts and bruises and insisted that he bathe right away (though he managed to talk them out of that, at least for the moment)._

_Finally, at long last, both of his grandparents seemed to calm themselves enough to sit down and ask him where he had been and what he had been doing.  Already worn out from all of the emotion that was being directed his way, Spot gave them a heavily abridged version of the last five years._

_"You say, you were on the front page of _The Sun_?" his Nana exclaimed.  "If we read _The Sun_, we might have seen you!"_

_"Pulitzer prints better news," his grandfather said emphatically.  "He's a good businessman."_

_"But if we'd read the _bloomin'_ paper, Cecil," she replied, just as emphatically, "we could have found him sooner."_

_"I didn't really want to be found," Spot muttered under his breath._

_"What was that, Patrick love?"_

_"...Nothing, Nana."_

_"Well, it doesn't matter.  You're here now.  You're safe and home!"_

_"Nana... Grandpa... This isn't my home," Spot said.  "My home is out there, with my boys."_

_"Nonsense!" his grandfather boomed.  "I will not let my only grandson live on the streets! Isn't it bad enough that I've lost my daughter? I will not lose you again."_

_"What?" Spot asked, confused.  "You haven't seen Ma?"_

_His grandmother sighed and looked into her tea.  "We haven't seen our Ashleigh in years.  She's still... in that place."_

_"No, she ain't! ...I mean, she's not," he corrected himself as his grandparents looked at him in horror.  "I saw her... barely more than a week ago.  She's not in the bin anymore."_

_"How can that be?" Nana asked.  "We haven't seen her at all.  If she were free, she would come home!"_

_Spot set his chin.  "I don't know what she's thinking, but it's possible.  _I_ didn't want to come back here.  Ever."  He let out an exasperated sigh as tears welled up in his Nana's eyes again.  "Nana, it doesn't have anything to do with you.  My life, my friends are all out there.  This place is not my home, and I know you want me to stay, Grandpa, but you can't keep me here."_

_"I can certainly try!"_

_"Bar the gates and I'll climb over them.  Lock the door and I'll break it down.  Tie me up and I'll _chew through the cords_, but I am _not_ staying here."_

_The old man sighed, looking his age for the first time.  "How like your mother you are... When she was young, she decided that she hated the park and took to climbing out onto the roof so that she wouldn't have to go.  All the women were too frightened to climb out after her, and the men were too afraid of acting with impropriety, so she always got her way.  At least, until she met the man who wasn't too afraid to go out onto the roof after her."_

_"My father," Spot replied flatly._

_"Aye, your father," his grandfather nodded.  "So, Patrick, if you've no intention of staying here, what did you come back for? To break our hearts again as we watch you disappear from our lives?"_

_"That ain't fair," Spot replied, purposefully ignoring grammar.  "I had no choice.  It was the streets or my father.  I made my choice and I'm gonna stand by it."_

_"So why are you here?"_

_"I'm here," Spot said, exasperated, "because I need _help_.  Maybe it was a bad idea, maybe I shouldn't've come, but that's why I came."_

_"Help?"_

"Spot!" Dutchy snapped.  "You listenin'?"

"Hell no," Spot replied.  "I've had a bad week and I'm tryin' to forget I was ever born.  I got no time to listen to you."

"Well, ain't that nice," the blond boy said, "and after I agreed to help with this dumb plan too."

"You didn't agree, Dutchy," Spot snapped.  "Mush and Specs had to hold you down while we put the suit on you and you tried to punch me!"

"'Course I did! This is the stupidest plan I ever heard of, and I was there when Jack wanted to start the strike."

"Strike worked, didn't it?"

"That ain't the _point_," Dutchy exclaimed.  "You show up last night with a horse and carriage and this uncomfortable suit, and you say that I gotta pretend that I'm rich while you hide by my feet, and you think this'll_ work_? I couldn't look like I was rich if I were covered in dollar bills!"

"You just have to get me into Brooklyn," Spot reminded him, fighting the urge to break Dutchy's foot.

"Why _me_? Why not Jack or Blink? They do dumb things all the time!"

"'Cause the Brooklyn boys'd recognize Jack and Blink, but they ain't gonna recognize you."

Dutchy snorted.  "Know what I think this is about? You were just hacked off that whatever rich people you went and begged for this stuff made you bathe.  When you got back lookin' so pretty, I coulda slapped a pink bow in your hair and called you my sister."

"Shut it."  Spot scowled.  He hadn't wanted to bathe, but his grandparents had insisted.  It was as though they thought that a bath would protect him from all the dangers of the outside world.  "Listen, Dutchy, you'se my only hope of getting' Brooklyn back.  And if I don't get Brooklyn back, then things are gonna get nasty.  Boys are goin' to start turnin' up dead again, and they might be people we know, so shut your mouth and look like a rich man."

Dutchy pouted.  He looked like he was about to say something else, but the coachman, who had been silent up till that point, turned around and drawled around the cigar in his mouth, "Yeah, you'se both'd better be quiet.  Spot, get your head down and try not to breathe."

Spot's scowl deepened.  He hadn't wanted Race to come along, knowing that the Brooklyn boys might recognize him, but the older newsie had insisted, and if ever there was a strength of will to match Spot's, it was Race's.  

So despite his misgivings, Spot tucked his head down and held his breath as they approached Brooklyn.


	10. ten

Spot had never before had such a difficult time not breathing audibly.  Now, however, crouched at Dutchy's feet and trying to pretend that they didn't smell, his every breath echoed in his ears as loudly as a foghorn.

"'Ey!" he heard from somewhere in front of the carriage.  "Mind stoppin' for a minute?"

"The boss is in a hurry," Race drawled.  "No time to stop, boys."

"Sorry, but we got our orders," came the reply, only an instant before the horses screamed in surprise and the carriage jerked to a halt.  Spot, unprepared for a change in momentum, crashed into the front board and bit back a grunt.

"Hey!" Race yelled.  "Move outta the way!"

Another voice replied.  "We'se real sorry.  Just let us have a quick look inside your carriage and you can be on your way, fancy as you please."

"I don't think you got the right to do that," Race insisted and Spot, knowing him as well as he did, could hear the note of fear in his voice.

"You look...familiar," the first voice said.  Spot could have kicked something.  _Race, you idiot! I _told_ you not to come with us, but you felt the need to protect me.  When are you going to learn? Spot Conlon doesn't need protecting!_

"Of course I look familiar," Race replied.  "I'se small and Italian.  We'se a dime a dozen in this city."

"That's prob'ly it, I guess."

"Nah, that ain't it," the second voice said.  "I definitely seen you before."

"Well, ain't that special," Race said, trying to inject an air of indifference into his words.  "So you seen me on a street corner someplace."

"Ain't that either."

Spot looked up at Dutchy, who looked back under the pretense of looking down his nose at the proceedings.  "_Do something!_" he mouthed.

Though Dutchy couldn't actually respond, the message in his eyes was clear: _What can I do?_

Spot winced.  Up front, Race was still talking fast, but he was running out of excuses, and the second that one of the Brooklyn boys recognized him, they were all done for.  "_Anything!_" he mouthed.  _"Just do _something_!_"

The blond boy sighed, an utterly unreadable expression on his face.  As he picked up his walking stick, it rearranged itself into a haughty countenance.  He rapped the stick smartly on the side of the carriage.  "You there!" he called sharply.  "Urchins!"  Spot's head snapped up.  Dutchy was speaking properly, even arrogantly.

"Yeah?" the first Brooklyn boy asked.

"Do not speak to me in that insolent tone of voice!" Dutchy barked.  "Now, what _possible_ reason could someone like you have for stopping my carriage?"

"Well, sir, our boss ordered us to search every carriage enterin' Brooklyn," the second boy answered more politely.  

"_Your_ boss?" Dutchy sneered.  "And who is _that_?"

"Uh, Blue."

"Blue?" he laughed scornfully.  "What manner of name is _that_? No, no, let me guess.  Perhaps the name of some _other_ urchin I could buy and sell with my pocket change?"

"Well, he's—"

"—someone who has no power over someone like me.  You haven't the right to search my carriage, and if you persist, I shall send the law after you! Disgraceful, James," Dutchy added in Race's general direction, "that such boys should feel as though they can climb all over my carriage at will."

"Yessir," Race replied.

"Sir, we'se real, real sorry," the second boy said in a wheedling voice, "but if Blue finds out that we didn't check a carriage, he's gonna have our necks.  Can't ya just let us have a quick peek?"

"Certainly not," Dutchy harrumphed, rapping the boy on his head with the stick.  "If you do not let us drive on immediately, I give you my word I'll have you up on charges!"

There was a moment of silence as the two boys whispered together.  Finally, the first boy said, "Fine, there's prob'ly nothing in there anyway...Go on."

As Race clucked to the horses and the carriage lurched back into motion, Spot breathed a deep sigh of relief.  They'd done it! Somehow, against every single odd, they'd done it, and now he was heading back into the heart of Brooklyn.

The three boys rode in silence for several moments.  Then suddenly, Dutchy slumped and let out a relieved sigh.  "Well, that was a pisser, huh?"

Spot stared up at him.  "Dutchy, what the hell was _that_?"

Dutchy smirked.  "I'se talented, Spot."

"I can see that, but what _was_ that?"

For the first time, the blond boy looked somewhat abashed.  "I kinda want to be an actor.  Medda's been givin' me some lessons, and she told me how to change my voice.  Hope ya ain't mad..."

"Mad? _Mad_?" Spot shook his head, slightly dazed.  "Dutchy, if I was a girl, I'd kiss ya.  You saved us all."

Though Dutchy shrugged and said, "Wasn't nothin'," a pleased smile curved his face.  

"One question, Dutchy," Race threw in from the front.  "Why didn't you _tell_ us you could do that? I nearly got _caught_ up here before you decided to chime in."

"I was embarrassed."

"You? You ain't got no shame at all, Dutchy," Race replied.  

Dutchy sighed.  "If it got 'round that I want to be an actor, how much trouble would the others give me? 'Least if I stay quiet, I don't get soaked by anyone."

Spot decided to throw Dutchy a bone.  "Yeah, I understand, Dutchy.  I won't tell no one, and neither will Race."

"Thanks," Dutchy looked down at Spot gratefully.  "So... What do we do now?"

Spot's angular face grew grim.  "You don't do nothin', Dutchy.  You sit there and don't get involved, no matter what.  You too, Race," he added.

"What if you start getting' beat on again?" Race asked, clearly not liking what Spot was saying.

"If I get beat on again, you take the carriage and Dutchy and get outta here.  Fast."

"What're you talkin' about, Spot?" Dutchy blurted.  "We ain't gonna just desert you."

"It's _my_ fight, Dutchy, and I ain't gonna get any of you involved in it.  I got nothin' without Brooklyn, and if I can't have Brooklyn, it's better to just let Blue finish me off."

Race pulled the horses to a stop and spun around to look down at Spot with an outraged expression.  "I ever catch you sayin' somethin' like that again and I'se gonna kill you myself!"

Dutchy looked between the two of them, confused.  "What's goin' on?"

"Spot an' me is old friends," Race said, never taking his eyes from Spot's face, "and I'll be damned if I let him get hurt."

"Race here couldn't help me if he tried.  He ain't a fighter, and I need to be able to concentrate on Blue when I fight, not whether Race's gettin' the tar beat out of him," Spot said cruelly.

A muscle under Race's eye twitched.  "I can take care of myself, and I seem to 'member a time when little Spot Conlon couldn't do more than cry."

Spot was furious.  "Maybe he was just cryin' at the sight of _your_ ugly mug.  Maybe he was scared at the way you was always _lookin__'_ at him."

Race's fists clenched tight on the reins.  "Dutchy, would you mind gettin' out of the carriage for a bit? Spot an' I gotta talk."

Looking more than happy to oblige and get himself out of a clearly uncomfortable situation, Dutchy quickly climbed out of the carriage and walked into a shop, looking dignified as dignified as he possibly could, as Race turned the carriage into a side alley.

He sat silently for a moment, then said, "Talk, O'Connor." 

"No."

"_Talk."_

"It's nothin', Race."

"It ain't nothin', and if you don't talk right now, I swear I'll soak you, Spot Conlon or no."

"I didn't mean anythin', Race," Spot said carefully, suddenly worried that he'd gone too far.

"I think you did.  I think what you'se _tryin__'_ to say is that you think I got...funny feelings for you."

"Nah, nah, that ain't what I meant," Spot insisted, but Race was having none of it.

"You think that I think about you like most guys think about girls.  That's what you'se sayin'.  Well... you'se right."  Spot stared up at Race, shocked, but Race resolutely kept his back to him.  "I do have funny feelings for you, but you'se also the closest thing I got to family, and I'se not about to do anythin' to ruin that.  So you ain't gotta worry about me tryin' anythin'."

"I ain't worried 'bout that," Spot said quickly, trying to quell the slight disgust that Race's admission had stirred in him.  "I guess I kinda noticed, but I ain't about to do anythin' about it, Race.  You'se kinda like a brother to me too."

"Oh?" Race laughed bitterly.  "Then what was that back there, right in front of Dutchy?"

"That? _That_ was me, tryin' my hardest to keep you from gettin' _killed,_" Spot snapped.  "You wanna protect me? Well, I'se tryin' to protect _you_."

"By tellin' Dutchy everythin'?" Race asked, still angry himself.  "How's that supposed to help?"

"Kings like me ain't supposed to have families outside of their followers.  It makes us weak.  Vulnerable.  Well, outside of Brooklyn, Race, you'se the only thing that I really care 'bout, and if tellin' Dutchy that you care 'bout me too is the only way to get out outta Brooklyn and back safe to Manhattan, then that's exactly what I'se gonna do.  You'se my brother and my weak spot.  I ain't gonna go into a fight worryin' about you.  Got it now?"  

Slowly, Race turned around and looked at Spot for the first time.  "Yeah, Conlon.  I got it now.  I ain't happy, but I definitely got it."

Spot nodded, more relieved than he wanted to admit.  "Good."

"So... What should I do now?"

"Now?" One corner of Spot's turned up in a lopsided smile that wasn't really a smile at all.  "Now you let me go on alone."

"_What_?"

"It's the only way, Race," Spot replied, speaking quietly and correctly.  "I want you to go get Dutchy and get out of Brooklyn as fast as you can.  Things are going to get very nasty."

"What're you plannin' to do?" Race breathed, seeing the feverish look in Spot's eyes.

"It's best if you don't know."

"Spot—"

"Patrick."

Racetrack blinked, shocked.  "What?"

"Patrick, Race.  For one last time, it's Patrick."

The blood drained from Race's face.  "You're... Are you goin' to...?"

"I would've been dead last time without your help, Race, so there's a distinct possibility, yes."

"Is Brooklyn really worth your _life_?" Race asked strongly, trying and failing to hide the horror in his voice.

"It's the only thing I've got that's worth anything.  Please, Race, there's not much time."

Struggling to hide his shaking, Race blinked hard and held out a remarkably steady hand to Spot.  "Good luck, Patrick."

Spot grasped Race's hand and shook it firmly.  "Thanks.  Good luck to you too, Anthony."

With that, Spot hopped out of the carriage and walked slowly but proudly away down the length of the alley.  

Race watched him go and whispered one last time, "Good luck, brother."  He let out a deep, trembling breath and yelled to Dutchy, who was lurking at the edge of the alley, "Dutchy, get in! We got to get out of here _now_!"


	11. eleven

From the instant Spot turned out of the alley and onto the street, he knew that he was being watched.  He knew from the way the hairs on the back of his neck were tingling, and from the way that he saw boys staring at him out of the corner of his eye.  _When I'm back in power, the first thing I'm going to do is teach them to be more subtle._  In response to the eyes upon him, he kept his head high and his face calm.  He would never have told anyone that he felt naked without the comforting weight of the cane at his side or in his hand.  

He frowned.  This certainly wasn't the best time to think about Race's words, but they wouldn't stop replaying themselves in his head.  Race had given him the cane, had been his only friend, had even made him think that it was possible for him to live a life away from his controlling father.  Patrick had been grateful, and had looked up to Race.  But now, Spot couldn't stop thinking, what was it Race had wanted all along? Had he had some ulterior motive in mind when giving him the cane? _Am I ever going to be able to look him in the eye again_? Despite Spot's bold words earlier, he wasn't comfortable with the idea of Race _liking_ him.  _Dammit, Race, why'd you have to go and do a thing like be queer?_ Spot cursed inwardly.  _And why'd you have to go and be brave about it? Because I respect that.  You were honest, and I can't repay that with cowardice.  I have to pretend that it never happened.  I owe you that.  _A grim smile played around Spot's lips.  _Anyhow, it might not be a problem after all... I might never see you again._

Now he was being followed.  Looking as casual as they could, several boys had detached themselves from buildings they had been leaning against, and were now cautiously following him.  Spot turned into a small, empty side street, and the Brooklyn boys followed quietly, still apparently thinking that he hadn't noticed them.

He took a deep, silent breath.  It was time to begin the games.  With a cocky grin on his face, he spun around and stared straight at the six boys who had tailed him.

"Well, if it ain't my good ol' boys," he said mockingly.  "Followin' their leader like an army."

Startled at his sudden about-face, five out of the six boys jumped and hands grabbed for their slingshots and rusty knives.  The sixth boy, who had been keeping towards the back, stepped forward with a grin to match Spot's own.

"We knew you'd be comin' back sometime, so we wanted to give you a proper welcome, jus' like Blue ordered."  

"Like Blue ordered, eh, Crumbs?" Spot raised an eyebrow.  "Then you'd better get to it, huh?"

Crumbs' hands, which till then had remained relaxed at his side, dropped to his club.  "Understand that it ain't personal, eh, Spot? Blue beat ya and we got to do what he says, don't we?"

Spot tilted his head to the side.  "Course," he replied as he stared at the tall, blond newsie.  "Ain't personal at all."

With a shrug, Crumbs moved forward until he was standing directly in front of his former leader.  He raised the club over his head, preparing to strike.  Spot's eyes never left his.  He never even flinched.

For one tense moment, there was silence.  The five boys who were hanging back watched the proceedings with gaping mouths and clenched fists.  Crumbs and Spot might have been statues, standing there since time began.

Then, suddenly, Crumbs' club whistled towards Spot's head.

The five boys involuntarily winced, not wanting to see the splatter of blood or hear the crunching of bone.

But there was silence.

When they dared to look again, a strange sight met their eyes.  Spot still hadn't moved or even attempted to defend himself.  Crumbs' club hovered mere inches from Spot's head, but it was motionless and Crumbs was looking down at Spot with a rueful smile on his face.

Ever so slowly, Spot stuck out his hand, his face intense.  Crumbs immediately lowered his club and grabbed Spot's hand.  They shook heartily.

Crumbs shook his head.  "You'se a real piece of work, Spot.  How'd you know that I couldn't hit you?"

Spot grinned, a small corner of his mouth tilting up.  "I didn't, Crumbs.  I thought you was gonna."

"So did I."

Though Spot suppressed his reaction, inside he swallowed nervously.  "Oh? You _was_ gonna smash my head, then?"

"Yeah.  Orders is orders, right?" 

Spot snorted.  "Orders ain't orders if they'se comin' from Blue."

Shrugging, Crumbs replied, "If Blue can almost kill Spot Conlon, there ain't no tellin' what he could do to the rest of us."

"So why'd you stop?" Spot crossed his arms.

"'Cause you was right, Spot.  You was better to us than Blue is.  You'se still my leader."

Spot nodded, satisfied.  "Thanks, Crumbs.  If we survive this, though, remind me to soak ya for showin' weakness in the face of orders."

Crumbs just laughed.  After a moment, though, his face grew serious again.  "So what now, boss?"

Spot, equally serious, said, "Two of us against the rest of Brooklyn."

"Are you outta your _mind_?" Crumbs asked, his eyes widening.

"I walked into Brooklyn without a weapon and let ya almost beat my brains out... I don't really gotta answer that question."

"Two of us... 'gainst all of them?" Crumbs mused.  Slowly, he turned around and regarded the other five, who had been standing stock-still, watching them in surprise.  "We could always start with 'em."

A feral smile spread over Spot's face.  He and Crumbs understood each other quite well.  "I may not have my cane, but I reckon that between the two of us, we could beat 'em easily."

"Unless, of course," Crumbs replied, "they'se on our side."  He slapped his cane against the flat of his palm, looking quite eager to start swinging it around.

They didn't make it more than three or four slow, stalking steps forward before the five boys were throwing down their weapons and welcoming Spot back with wide grins.  They started to introduce themselves, but Spot interrupted them.

"You'se Peghead, you'se Claw, you'se Bowtie, and you two... Bat an' Rat, right?"

"Yeah," Bat replied, his arm around his twin's shoulders.  "Ya always did have a memory for names, Spot."

Spot shrugged.  "It's what ya do when you'se got boys to look after.  So tell me, boys, is all of Brooklyn gonna be as happy to see me as you all is?"

Claw shook his dark, shaggy head.  "Ain't that simple, Spot."

"Never is, is it?"

"There's enough of those who's happy to see Blue that those who ain't are too scared to open their mouths.  It's easy for us right now 'cause we'se all alone and we ain't got Blue or his spies lookin' over our shoulders, but once we leave this alley..."

Spot nodded.  "I thought my boys was tougher than that."

"Ain't that we ain't tough, Spot," Crumbs interjected.  "We'se not as tough as you, maybe, and most of us ain't willing to walk into a battle with no allies."

Crossing his arms, Spot replied, "Well, I'se gonna get Brooklyn back, Crumbs.  Either that, or I'se gonna die.  And once we leave this alley, you'se all gonna pretend like ya never seen me and we ain't never had this talk.  But," he added, "once the fightin' starts, I'se gonna expect you all to fight at my side."

"I'll be there," Crumbs said.

"Us too," Rat said, indicating himself and Bat.

Peghead, so named because of his vaguely square-shaped head now shook that head with an amazed smile.  "I think that you'se guys are crazy, but I'd rather have Spot than Blue.  Count me in."

"And me," Claw said, sheathing his knife.

Bowtie looked the least happy of the five.  He was smaller than the others and quite a bit younger.  It was clear that he wanted to agree to help, but he was frightened.

Noticing, Spot said, "Bowtie, you'se got a different and harder job than these bums.  When Blue sees me, he's gonna want to send a message to the rest of the Brooklyn boys to come and fight me.  I want _you_ to be the boy he sends.  So you'se got to get close to 'im and act like you'se eager to take me down.  And when he does send ya, the message you'se gonna carry is gonna be that I've been spotted on the south end of Brooklyn, and that he wants them all to spread out down south and find me.  Can ya do that?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Bowtie replied, a gap-toothed smile on his mouth.  "But what if he don't send me? What if he sends someone else?"

"That's easy."  Spot looked the smaller boy in the eye.  "You follow 'em, hit 'em in the back of the head with somethin', and spread the message I gave you all the same.  Once you'se done, I want you to go to Manhattan."

"_Manhattan_?" Bowtie replied incredulously.  "And what do I do _there_?"

"You wait for it to be all over.  If I lose, I want all of _my_ boys who's able to go to Manhattan and stay there.  Better they leaves Brooklyn than stay and live under _Blue_," Spot spat.

"Leave Brooklyn?" Bat asked.  "But...Brooklyn's our home."

"Mine too," Spot said, his chin set, "but it's only home 'cause of the boys who lives here and is our family.  If it stays here under Blue, it's gonna die.  Make your own Brooklyn in Manhattan if ya gotta."  

Though their faces were rebellious and Spot clenched his fists, for the first time wondering if he'd gone too far, Crumbs again saved him.

"I always thought that Manhattan was a little too calm, but we could liven it up, eh, boys?"

Identical smiles spread across Bat and Rat's faces.  "Sounds like fun," Rat said.  "Them Manhattan boys... They'se nice enough, but they ain't got no sense of humor.  They needs some boys who know how to be wild."

Claw smiled too, black eyes keen in his angular face.  "I bet they ain't got no one over there that could beat me in gamblin'.  I could get rich."

"They got someone, Claw," Spot said quietly.  "He's a good gambler and he's got one hell of a poker face, but this ain't the time to think about that.  We gotta get started.  You boys had better get outta here.  I'll see you all at the warehouse."

He shook their hands, and with conspiratorial grins, they scattered in different directions, except for Crumbs.  Crumbs stayed standing right next to Spot, who leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

"So, Crumbs," Spot said, "you wasn't really gonna hit me, was you?"

Crumbs laughed.  "'Course I wasn't.  Me, hit Spot Conlon? I may be crazy enough to stand with ya against the rest of Brooklyn, but I ain't dumb enough to try to hurt ya."

"Atta boy."  Spot snorted, amused.  "Almost had me believin' you."

"I figured that them boys needed a little demonstration.  Besides...more fun this way, ain't it?"

Spot clapped Crumbs on the shoulder.  "Always.  Now, scram.  I'll be seein' you soon."

Crumbs tipped his hat, shouldered his club, and sidled out of the alley, leaving Spot alone once again.

********************************************************

"_Race_!" Dutchy yelled as the carriage hit another bump in the road, sending him bouncing around the seat.  "We'se outta Brooklyn! You can slow down now!"

"Says who?" Race countered grimly, one hand holding his hat on his head, the other urging even more speed from the horses.

"Says _me_!" He groaned, feeling slightly ill from the speed and the bumps that sent him hurtling into the air.  "We did what Spot said, didn't we? We got him into Brooklyn and we got out again.  So you can slow down the horses before I get sick over the side!"

"Yeah, we did what Spot said," Race called back to Dutchy, "but that don't mean that I gotta listen to everything he says."

"What're you _talkin__'_ about?" Dutchy clutched a hand to his turbulent stomach.  "We'se goin' back to the Lodging House, and I'se gonna take these clothes off and sleep for three days.  _Right_?"

"Wrong."

"Wrong..." Dutchy groaned again, lying down on his side.  "Of course, wrong.  Sometimes I really hate ya, Race."

"That idiot's gonna get himself killed!"

"It ain't our fight.  He told us to leave and not come back."

"What's that, Dutchy?" Race said, a hint of amusement coloring his voice.  "Don't tell me _you'se_ afraid of Spot."

"'Course I am! He's _Spot Conlon_! The whole time he was here by my feet, I was afraid he was goin' to chop them off or somethin'."

"Well, I ain't afraid of him."  Race turned his head briefly and glanced down at Dutchy, whose skin was turning a pasty color.  "He brought Brooklyn to our rescue durin' the strike.  We couldn't have done it without him, and it's Manhattan's turn to help him."

"_What_?"

"Just lie there and keep your mouth shut," Race snapped.  "We'se gonna be back at the Lodging House soon, and you can go sleep while the rest of us go to Brooklyn."

Despite his roiling stomach, Dutchy managed to sit up slightly, his chin firming.  He wasn't the proudest boy in the world, but he wasn't going to just sit there while Race insulted his honor.  "So what's the plan?"

"Plan? I figured that we could all storm Brooklyn and help Spot fight."

Dutchy grunted.  "Great plan, Race," he said sarcastically, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the lurching landscape.  "Listen, if you really want to do somethin' stupid, this is what we should do..."  His voice lowered to barely more than a whisper.

By the time Race pulled the horses to a halt in front of the Lodging House, Dutchy's stomach had been utterly forgotten.


	12. twelve

The streets of Brooklyn were quiet. As Spot walked slowly through the nearly deserted lanes, his back was straight. This wouldn't be the first time the remainder of his life could be measured in mere moments. If he was about to die, he was going to do it proudly: no whimpering, no slouching in fear.

He hadn't told Race the full truth, and that gnawed at him, but only slightly. If he didn't want Race to know that his great master 'plan' wasn't much of a plan at all, then it was for the best. Racetrack and the rest of the Manhattan boys would stay out of this, and that was exactly what Spot wanted...or what he told himself that he wanted. It was really the only way he could protect them.

A grim smile cracked his face. _I am the great Spot Conlon, and I have no plan._ It didn't matter, though. Beyond Brooklyn, what meaning did his life have? His family might care about him, but they really knew nothing about him and what the past five years had made of him. There was Racetrack, of course, and Race definitely cared about him – more than he should – but Race didn't want to accept it either. He still believed that deep inside, Spot was still that frightened boy, and that he would always know more than Spot would. And then there was Brooklyn. Brooklyn asked everything of him that he was willing to give, and more. Brooklyn expected only the best from him. It knew who he was and welcomed him for it.

"For Brooklyn!" he muttered, turning the corner. He paused, the warehouse looming in front of him. Though Blue was nowhere in sight, Spot had no doubt that if he wasn't watching from a window, one of his scouts would inform him of Spot's presence within moments.

Spot automatically reached for his cane, before remembering that he didn't have it anymore. His lips firmed. _I'm here to take back what's mine, you bastard. And you'll have to kill me before I give up._ Looking as casual as he could, he hooked his hands into the top of his pants and swaggered over to stand in front of the warehouse in an unconscious imitation of where Blue had been waiting for him last time.

As he stood there patiently, he was keenly aware of boys peeking out from corners, whispering. In fact, a general rustling was heard up and down the street. It seemed, though, that no one wanted to be the first to face him down.

Finally, Blue, looking larger and more self-important than ever, stepped out of the door to the warehouse, Spot's cane hooked through his belt. "So it _is_ you," he said with a smug tone in his voice, noting Spot's bruises and his apparent isolation. "And what're you doin' in this neck of the woods?"

"Ain't it obvious?" Spot replied coolly. "You got hold of some things that belong to me, an' I've come to get 'em back."

Blue smirked and snapped his fingers. Within seconds, the streets were crawling with Brooklyn newsies, more than a few looking apprehensive. "You mean _these_? They ain't yours anymore, Spot, if they ever was."

Spot ignored Blue's words. "Yeah, I came back for my boys. And for my warehouse. And my streets. And..." He motioned at the gleaming cane.

Blue let out a sharp whistle. Within seconds, a small boy dashed out of the crowd to stand next to him. Spot suppressed a smile, recognizing the young newsie.

"You!" Blue snapped. "What's your name?"

"Bowtie," came the ready response.

"Bowtie, I got an important job for ya. I want to you to spread the word to all of Brooklyn that this bum's showed up 'ere." Blue's eyes locked on Spot's. "And tell 'em that they need to come, jus' in case he's got...friends around."

"Yes, sir!" Bowtie nodded. Then, as he turned, he nodded again, almost imperceptibly, in Spot's direction, and ran off.

_At least that much will go right. Good job, Bowtie. If I survive, I'll remember this._

"So. What've you got up your skinny little sleeve, Spot?" Blue asked. "You got some sort of army, maybe? Those wimps from Manhattan? Or a gun? You got a gun under there?"

Blue didn't really expect an answer, Spot knew. His taunts were meant to unsettle Spot, nothing more. So he didn't respond. He continued to stand still, his body stance deceptively relaxed. He watched. And he waited.

"....an' that's that. So, what d'you guys think?" Dutchy sat back, feeling relatively pleased with himself. The others were all silent, staring at him. He was somewhat surprised; he knew it was a good idea, but he hadn't really expected them all to be struck dumb by his brilliance.

Always quick, David was the first one to find his voice. "Are you _nuts_?" he sputtered. "Dutchy, that's got to be the worst plan I've ever heard, and—"

"—and you was here when Jack started the strike, I know," Dutchy finished, offended. "It's a _good_ plan, guys!"

Racetrack, who had been pacing back and forth by the door, paused briefly. "Same damn plan that _I_ had, ain't it?"

"No, it's totally different," Dutchy exclaimed, now wishing that everyone would stop staring at him. "You jus' wanted to go an' back Spot up, right? _I_ say that we should go in with bats, an' chains, an', um, other things. We go in fast, and we soak anyone who gets in our way. We ain't jus' gonna back him up. We can take on Brooklyn."

"He is crazy," David muttered to Jack. "We can't take on _anyone_, let alone Brooklyn."

Jack had a pensive look on his face. "Maybe not, Dave, but Spot backed us up when we needed him."

"That's what _I_ said," Race snapped, "but no one listens to _me_, do they?" Everyone stared again, but this time it was at the normally unflappable Race. "What're you guys gawkin' at? If we don't hurry, Spot's gonna get himself killed! So let's just _go_!"

"Race?" Mush said quietly. "Are you okay?"

In response, Race started kicking the doorframe in frustration. "No, I _ain't_ okay. Got that? I ain't okay, guys. Spot's the closest thing I ever had to family, and you'se guys is just sittin' around and debatin' whether to go help him. If you guys ain't gonna go, then I'se gonna go by myself!"

"Hold it, Race," Jack said sharply. "No one's said that we ain't going. We'se just tryin' to find the best way in."

"My way's best," Dutchy cut in. "Unless anyone can think of anythin' better right now, we ain't got _time_."

"He's right," Swifty put in. "We gotta get goin', guys."

Jack glanced at David, who shrugged. "If we're going to go, then let's go."

"Right," Jack said. "Swifty, you go find the rest of the guys. Tell 'em to meet at the bridge right now, and bring what weapons they got. And Race?" He sighed. "Try to stay calm."

"So, Spotty-boy," Blue jeered, "who was the whimpering lady cryin' over you before? Was it your mommy? Did she come to protect her baby boy?" Spot froze. It was only for a second or two, but Blue noticed. "It _was_, wasn't it?" Blue started laughing loudly, and called out to the rest of the boys on the wide street. "Didja all hear that? Little skinny boy 'ere needed his mommy to take care of him!"

_If I die, I die proudly. Proud of all of it. _

"That's right, Blue," Spot said, allowing the inflection to drop from his voice. "It was my mother. I have a family, and if I wished it, I could have more money than I know what to do with." He looked around. Everyone, even Blue, was gaping at him in astonishment. "But I don't wish it. Do you know why that is, Blue? Do you know why, you ignorant bastard?" As Blue had done, Spot raised his voice to every newsie on the street. "Do _any_ of you know why? Because it's what I chose! I am here because I want to be. I'm here because I'd rather be with my boys than anywhere else. I'd rather starve with you all than be pampered and bathed. I'd rather be here. With all of you. And if I die tonight, then I die with pride, because I die among you!"

He could sense the mood on the street shifting slightly, though it was hard to tell in which direction. All he could do was hope that his speech, a speech he had never thought to make, would remind them of all he had done for them. They would probably never know how much it had cost him to make it.

_At least Blue can't think of anything to say._ Indeed, the older boy was standing stock-still, apparently dumbstruck by Spot's bold words.

Eventually, though, Blue found his words again. "Then, you'se a _fake_," he sneered loudly. "The famous Spot Conlon ain't one of us, and he never was. We don't need your kind 'ere, and we never did!" There was a definite murmur of assent on the street.

"A _fake_?" Spot said angrily, his voice carrying to the furthest corners of the street. "Tell me, boys, everything I've done the past five years... Was that all fake? Was it a fake when I got rid of this joke of a leader the first time? Was it a fake when I organized the boys of Brooklyn so that we weren't being preyed on by scam artists and petty thieves...expect for those of us who are scam artists and petty thieves, of course?" At that, a small chuckle ran up and down the road. "Was it a fake when we joined with newsies from around the city and defeated _The World_? We all came from somewhere, boys. Each of us had a mother and a father. Does it _really_ matter if mine are still alive or not?"

"Yes, it matters!" Blue yelled back. "Spot always pretended to be one of us. He always acted like he was...like he knew what it was like to be poor an' alone. An' all that while, he was just some rich boy!"

Emotions on the street were rising. Spot sensed it, and he began to slowly shift into a defensive position. He no longer had faith that his boys would fight for him, but he would fight for them anyway, and for himself.

"At least I cared about them!" Spot shouted. "You never gave a damn about a one of us, Blue, but I did!" His hands itched for the cane. It was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing for it, but he hadn't lived this long by acting on every single instinct of his.

"It don't matter anyway," Blue snapped. "I got the power 'ere, and I'se not plannin' to give it up."

Spot took a deep breath, noting how Blue's hand was inching towards his side. He couldn't tell from a glance whether it was a gun or a knife that Blue held concealed. _If it's a knife, I have a chance. If it's a gun...then I hope that he aims for my head. Better a quick end._

In any case, the feeling in the street was turning ugly. Any second now, someone was going to throw a punch, and there would be chaos. And Spot would win. Or he would lose.

Not wanting to wait any longer, Spot started to walk forward purposefully. He was ready.

But before he could reach Blue, a wild roar rang out from down the street. Startled, Spot swung his head around. He was somehow not surprised at the sight that met his eyes.

_Racetrack, you idiot._


	13. thirteen

As Spot watched the crowd of Manhattan newsies charging down the street, he wasn't sure how to react. They were led by Dutchy, who was swinging chains around his head and screaming, "_Get them!_" Spot had an absurd urge to laugh at the sheer incongruousness of the whole thing. Instead, though, he scowled. _I told them to stay away. I told _him_ to stay away. How can I do what I have to do if I have to worry about whether they're getting hurt?_

There was no choice, though, and he knew it. The Manhattan boys had clearly made their own choice, and Spot wasn't about to let down his guard in front of Blue. Despite his misgivings about letting them get involved in this, deep down he was slightly appreciative that for once, someone was defending him without being asked. He'd long ago learned that no one was going to stand up for him, so he'd begun standing up for himself. And now the Manhattan newsies were putting themselves in danger for him, _despite_ his direct orders. He couldn't help but feel grateful.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Blue's mouth fall open as the Manhattan mob slammed into the wall of Brooklyn newsies without ever slowing down. Within seconds, the Brooklyn boys were surging forward to meet this new threat, and the sounds of fighting filled the air. Knowing that he had a few seconds before Blue regained his composure, Spot craned his neck, searching for Racetrack in the crowd. He knew as surely as he knew the color of his eyes that not only was Race somewhere in there, but that this charge had probably been Race's idea. _No one else could be that stupidly generous._ Just before he wheeled back around to face Blue, he caught a glimpse of Race's snarling face as his fist plowed into another boy's gut. It was enough.

"So, Blue," Spot said flatly, looking straight at the taller boy, "why don't we get this over with? None of your goons, just you and me." Despite the yelling all around and Spot's quiet tone of voice, his words carried clearly to Blue, who was glaring.

"So you _did_ get those Manhattan wimps involved." Blue snorted. "I shoulda known that you wouldn't have the nerve to face me alone."

"I didn't get them involved. They got themselves involved."

"Why? That boyfriend of yours scared for your pretty little skin?" There was a sneer on Blue's face.

Spot stiffened, ice shooting up and down his spine. "_What_ did you say?"

"Ya heard me. You ain't the only one with spies, Spotty-boy."

A growl started low in Spot's throat as his fists clenched.

"I wonder," Blue said conversationally, "how all of his friends would take it if they found out he was queer." He made a show of looking around in the crowd. "I could tell 'em all right now. 'Course, it wouldn't go over so good for him, would it?" He smirked. "He'd have to leave, prob'ly... after he gets outta the hospital, that is."

The growl in Spot's throat swelled to a roar. He'd heard of the phrase "seeing red," before, but now, as he rushed at Blue, he finally understood exactly what it meant. He couldn't remember ever feeling this enraged before, but the second that his fist connected with Blue's face, the last vestiges of rational thought disappeared. Now there was only Blue, and he had become only so much meat to be ground down and bones to be broken.

Spot fought as he had never fought before, his fists whirling, his only joy when his fists punched into skin, cartilage, and bone, his only satisfaction when he saw blood dripping from Blue's crooked nose and twisted mouth.

He barely felt it when Blue's heavy punches landed. Though he knew that he was bleeding too, he wasn't sure from where and didn't care to find out. It hurt, more and more each time, but he just let the pain course through him until it became his world and didn't slow him down.

The bloodlust only intensified when Spot bounded to his feet after a particularly savage blow had knocked him to the ground to find that Blue had taken the cane from his belt and was swinging it towards Spot's face.

As the gold tip hurtled towards his eyes, something even deeper than instinct took hold. Time seemed to slow down and the sounds of the sudden war around him receded. He looked up at Blue's face, nearly frozen in a grimace. Spot reached up with a hand that felt like it was pushing through molasses, and neatly caught the cane. Ignoring the pain that shot through his hand at the impact, he fought for control of the cane in a dreamlike haze. As Blue began to pull it away, Spot brought up his other hand and pulled harder.

Time still moving at a crawl, Spot grunted as with a sudden surge of strength, he wrenched the cane from Blue's hands. Blue lost his grip, and Spot went stumbling backwards, landing hard on the ground. That pain didn't matter either. After all, the cane was back where it belonged, clutched in his bloody hands.

He pushed himself back to his feet, the cane sliding in his hands until he held it ready to swing at Blue. "That's one thing that's mine," he snarled. "I'll take the rest back one-by-one if I have to, but you _won't_ win."

Blue crouched, also ready to lunge. "I'se not so sure about that," he replied, breathing as harshly as Spot. "Tell me, Spot, did _your_ boys fight for ya? Did they rise up an' throw me outta Brooklyn?"

"Enough fought for me!" Spot yelled, swinging the cane with all of his strength. Blue dove out of the way.

As he rolled back to his feet, he called back, "Enough? I don' think so! If they _really_ wanted to get rid of me, they woulda! But either they was all too scared, or they jus' didn't care enough!"

The red haze around Spot was starting to recede. Against his will, Blue's words were penetrating his head. "You're _wrong_!" was all he could think to yell as he took another swing and missed.

Blue spat bloody spittle onto the sidewalk and smirked. "Face it, Spot! No one really cares about ya! If you got family, they didn't care enough to try to take you back! The Brooklyn boys don't care enough to fight for you. The Manhattan boys is only here 'cause they cared 'nough about the queer to not let him fight alone. He's the only one who cares 'bout ya, Spot. The _only_ one. An' he only cares in a perverted, _sick_ way!"

Spot swung again, wildly, missing Blue by a wide margin. "He's my _friend_," he growled. "And if he cares, that's enough for me, you goddamn bastard!" He ducked as Blue threw a punch that whistled right over his head. "Because that's more than _you_ have!"

"How much longer could you have fooled the Brooklyn boys?" Blue asked, moving around Spot in a circle, stalking, waiting for the moment to strike. He spoke with such force that little drops of blood flew at Spot. "You convinced 'em that you was tough an' that you deserved to be their leader, but it ain't so! You'se just a little boy, ain't you?" He laughed mockingly. "Look at you! Skinny an' _weak_! You'se practically shakin' in your shoes." He paused long enough for Spot to swing and miss again. "I know what you is," Blue continued, sounding as though he'd just made a great discovery. "You'se nothing, Spot. _Nothing._"

Letting out a wild yell of rage, Spot flew at Blue, but his sureness and quickness seemed to have deserted him. Blue sidestepped easily and flung Spot to the ground.

Spot's head banged against the hard ground with enough force that colors danced in front of his eyes and pain coursed through his head, worse than any that had come before. The cane flew from nerveless fingers and landed in a nearby gutter. He let out a broken groan, trying dizzily to stand back up, and failing. The best he could manage was pulling himself onto hands and knees.

When the whirling colors finally subsided enough for him to see again, he looked up at Blue and froze. During Spot's desperate struggle to regain his feet, Blue had calmly pulled out his gun from wherever he'd been keeping it and was pointing it directly at Spot's face.

"I'se done playin' around," Blue said coldly. "You wanted to end this, so let's end it, Spot. You lose."

As Spot stared up at the barrel of the gun, all emotion drained from him. He felt strangely calm. Walking up to the warehouse, he'd known full well that he might die. He hadn't really _expected_ it, but he'd accepted it.

And now he accepted it as a certainty.

Slowly standing on rubbery legs that threatened to collapse from under him, he glanced around. The Manhattan boys were still fighting hard, and he wasn't sure, but it looked like some of the Brooklyn newsies had joined them. He wished that he could tell them that they were fighting for a lost cause, but his voice wouldn't work. He wished that he could make a final speech and tell them all that he regretted nothing. He wished that he could thank Racetrack for everything. He even wished that he had felt for Race what Race had felt for him, so that he would have at least known those feelings for himself. In the space of a second, he wished for so many things, and knew that he would get none of it.

Looking back at Blue, he could see that Blue was surprised by the utter calm and even peace on Spot's face. "You think I ain't gonna kill ya, Spot?" he asked, his aim centered in the middle of Spot's head.

"I know you are," Spot answered, keenly aware that some of the closest fighters had noticed what was happening and had stopped fighting in favor of standing and gaping. Slowly, he raised his gaze from Blue and looked up at the sky. He didn't want his last vision to be Blue's ugly face. Why hadn't he ever noticed before how beautiful the sky was?

A small smile touched his face as he closed his eyes and waited for the bullet to shatter his thoughts and end his existence. He heard a panicked yell nearby that sounded like his name, but paid it no mind.

When the sound of the shot rose above even the din of warring boys, Spot knew it was over. But though he hadn't flinched away, he felt no new pain. He could still hear the noise around him, could still feel the sweat dripping down his face, could still think. What had happened? How could Blue have missed?

He cracked his eyes open. At the sight that met his eyes, a strangled gasp rose from his lungs.

Racetrack was standing between Spot and Blue, his arms outstretched wide as though to block Spot entirely from Blue. There was an eerie stillness to Race's body, and though he was still standing, Spot realized what had happened and started to tremble. Dimly, Spot realized that the shout he had heard must have been Race.

The world taking on a surreal cast, Spot stumbled forward, trying to grab Race before he crumpled to the ground. Though he stretched his arms as far as they could go, he couldn't move fast enough, and Race fell, his body seeming to fold in on itself.

Spot fell to his knees besides Race, desperately turning him over, hoping against hope that Race would grin and laugh at Spot for falling for his trick. But the instant that he saw Racetrack's face, he knew that his hope was all in vain.

Though Race's merry brown eyes were open, they stared vacantly at the sky, the spark that had made Race who he was gone. His face held an expression of shock and panic. And most damning of all, blood was beginning to pool on the ground below them, flowing from the bullet hole above Race's left eye.

"Oh, god," Spot whispered numbly. "Oh, god. Oh, god, no..." He could barely tear his eyes away from Race, lying so still, but he managed. Casting his eyes around frantically, as though he would see the cure for death if only he could find it fast enough, he dazedly noted that the sound of the bullet firing seemed to have stopped the fighting altogether. All around him, bloody and bruised boys stood still, staring at him, at Racetrack. Spot's heart was pounding so hard that he thought it was about to burst of its own accord. He vaguely wondered whether any of the Manhattan boys had seen yet.

And then he saw Jack, somewhere to his right. Jack's face had gone as white as a sheet as he gazed down at his friend's body, and he looked as though a simple breeze might knock him over.

Glancing to the other side, Spot recognized Dutchy and Boots, standing side by side. Boots was clutching Dutchy's arm, and Dutchy was staring at the ground, but Spot could see the tears running down his bruised face.

Several boys back from Dutchy, Kid Blink was hysterically fighting his way forward, but Mush grabbed him and held him still before he could reach Spot and Racetrack.

Spot couldn't see any more of the Manhattan boys at a glance, but he knew they were there somewhere, standing shocked and betrayed, and he knew that any of them would trade his life for Racetrack's in a second.

_And so would I._

His hand trembling, he reached out for Race's face, but his fingers curled into a fist before they reached their goal.

And now, he looked at the one person he hadn't looked at yet. He looked at Blue, who was standing still, the gun still smoking in his hand.

Spot stood up, not sure whether the pounding in his head was pain or rage. "You should have shot me just then," he said, his voice flat and emotionless. He took a step forward. Blue took a step back. "You should have shot me before I stood up." Another step forward. "You should have shot me before I saw Racetrack." Blue was backing up even more. "You should have shot me before Racetrack tried to save me." Emotion was beginning to return. Grief and rage tried to throttle Spot. "You should have shot me before we started fighting," he continued, his voice starting to rise. "Because even if you shoot me right now, right this second," he said, every word louder than the one before, "you can't stop me. Even if you blow my head off, I will still _kill you for what you did to my friend!_" he screamed and dove at Blue.

After that, there wasn't another word spoken. Spot and Blue grappled frenziedly with only the occasional grunt. They rolled around on the dusty ground, fighting for control of the gun. Around them, boys crowded, some looking at Racetrack, some looking anywhere _but_ at Racetrack, but no one made a sound or moved to help either Spot or Blue. Even the youngest among them knew that this was a fight to the death, and that it was no longer their fight if, indeed, it ever had been.

Suddenly, Spot bit down on Blue's wrist as hard as he could. As Blue yelled in pain, his fingers loosened on the gun, and Spot pulled it away. Blue clutched his torn arms to his chest for an instant, gazing up at Spot with a face that, for the first time, showed horror.

Spot gazed down at him, his eyes black with rage, Blue's blood on his lips and chin, his face broken and dusty. Before Blue could think to move, Spot leveled the gun on Blue's face, and the bigger boy froze with Spot sitting on his chest.

He didn't protest, even when Spot jammed the barrel of the gun into his mouth.

"I warned you," Spot hissed, "that I was going to kill you." His eyes bore into Blue's. "Do you regret it?"

Blue's words were somewhat garbled because of the gun in his mouth, but he spoke anyway. "No. He was just a queer."

Spot pulled the trigger.

It felt infinitely more satisfying than he could have imagined to feel the jerk of the gun, to hear the muffled shot, to see the malicious light in Blue's eyes silenced forever. His finger still holding the trigger tightly, Spot watched the puddle of red slowly grow beneath them, soaking Blue's hair.

Spot's strength left him then, and he rolled away, stumbling to his feet, wondering how much of the blood that covered him was his. He looked around again, dropping the gun to the ground as though it were the most disgusting thing he'd ever touched.

He was too tired to read the emotions on anyone's face. And for the first time, he didn't want to. He didn't want to know what they were thinking. He didn't want to see grief and pain that echoed his own. He didn't want to see disgust at what he'd done.

And he didn't want to be here anymore.

The thought coalesced in his mind with a clarity that stunned him. _I want to leave_. He had spent the last five years fighting for Brooklyn with his whole heart, and now Brooklyn had taken from him the only person who had meant anything to him. Blue had been right about one thing: the boys of Brooklyn hadn't fought for him. Some of them may have wished for him to come back, but they hadn't banded together and tossed out Blue, who had been, after all, only one person. Some of them had even fought _for_ Blue. Brooklyn didn't need Spot and Spot suddenly realized that he didn't need Brooklyn, not really.

Slowly, he turned and crouched down beside Racetrack's still form. "I...I think I understand what you were trying to tell me all this time," he whispered, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "Thank you, Race... Thank you, but I wasn't worth it. I wasn't worth—" He broke off, his shoulders shaking. "I'm so sorry," he resumed raggedly after a moment. "I'm so—" Savagely punching the ground, Spot had to look away. There was only one thing left to say. "I'll make you proud somehow, Race. You have the word of a Conlon and of an O'Connell." He reached out and slowly closed Race's eyes, sliding the lids down over the glassy surfaces that no longer reflected anything except Spot.

Despite his best efforts, a single tear escaped from Spot's eye and blurred his vision for a moment before falling to land next to Racetrack's head. He looked one last time at his friend and brother before standing up and gazing out over the crowd.

Spot's voice was quiet, but carried to the furthest reaches of the street. "Where is Crumbs?" The boys around him shifted away from his gaze, but didn't answer. "Where is Crumbs?" Spot asked again, his voice whip-like.

It took a moment, but the tall blond newsie shouldered his way out of the crowd to face Spot. His eyes darted briefly to the two dead boys lying on the ground.

"Crumbs," Spot said, "Brooklyn is yours. Take good care of her."

That was all he had for 'his' boys. No effusive words, no flowery farewells. Spot lingered only long enough to see the growing shock on Crumbs' face. Once he was sure that Crumbs knew what Spot was doing, he nodded briefly.

Spot bent down to pick up the cane and tucked it into his belt before striding away. As he walked through the silent crowd of boys, it parted for him into a wide path. His eyes met Jack's briefly. David had found Jack, and had a comforting hand on his shoulder. Jack still looked vaguely as though he might faint. Spot paused and stuck out his hand. Jack clasped it, and still in silence, the two shook hands.

There were many things that Spot wanted to say. He wanted to apologize, most of all, but in the end, all he said was, "Take good care of him." Jack nodded slowly, and that was all Spot needed. He walked away with his head held high.

There were thousands of Newsies in New York City. In years to come, many of them claimed to have been there on the day that Spot Conlon left Brooklyn forever. However, those who were actually there, who actually saw what happened... They never spoke of it to outsiders, and only rarely to each other.

But they never forgot.

**Author's Note:** Only one more chapter to go, and thank you all so much for reading and sticking with me, despite my inconstant updates. And before anyone yells at me, the idea to kill poor Racetrack came from The Second Batgirl, so please direct all complaints and death threats in her general direction (except not really, because she is awesome). And this chapter was pretty difficult to write (and this is coming from someone who enjoys torturing her characters), so I'd imagine it might be at least a little tough to read, but please stick around for the epilogue! Hopefully it'll make some, if not all of the sadness worth it...


	14. epilogue

Jack Kelly

C/O Lawrence Kloppman

Duane Street Lodging House

Manhattan, NY

March 25, 1901

Dear Jack,

I've never been very good at starting letters, so I'm just going to get out of the way all of the good wishes for your health and so on. I doubt that you were ever expecting to hear from me again, and for all I know, you're not even at the Lodging House anymore, but I felt like I should write (and if you've gone, Kloppman will know where, and he'll get this letter to you). After all, it _has_ been close to a year and a half since I left New York, and I wanted to find out how everyone back there is doing. I wasn't going to, though. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was perfectly content with the idea of never seeing any of you again.

Then, one night about two weeks ago, I had a really strange dream. I dreamed that I was flying over New York City, and I could see everything spread out beneath me; I even saw all of you selling papes. You were yelling at David for being too honest about the headlines. Next I flew over Brooklyn. Seeing it from the air took my breath away, at least in the dream. I always knew that Brooklyn was big, but until I was flying over it in my dream, I never really realized the vastness of it, and then I remembered that I used to run it single-handedly. I flew in lower, and I saw all of my boys going about their business like nothing had ever changed. Crumbs was doing a good job of handling things, I guess. I landed in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, and standing right next to me was this kid. He was a newsie, but I only ever met him once, around the time this whole thing started. His name was either Sparky or Spanky... I can't really remember which. Anyway, in my dream, he looked at me and said, "You ran away." Of course, I protested, but then he turned into Racetrack, who told me that I may have left New York, but that I just didn't run far enough. "You should have run further," he said. Then his cigar caught on fire, and burned him to death while Blue danced around in the background, spraying blood from his mouth. I woke up covered in sweat, and knew that I had to write to you, at least for closure.

I suppose that I also have curiosity to blame for this letter; recently, I've met another boy who used to be a New York City newsie, and he told me that some strange rumors about me and my whereabouts have been circulating there. I've been told that I killed myself, that I had myself buried with Racetrack, that I'm living in the gutters, that I've gone to live in Paris...and so on. So not that any of the Manhattan boys are really worried about me, I'm sure, but I wanted to let you know where I actually am and what I'm doing.

After that day, I spent a short amount of time with family recuperating (and I helped my grandparents find my mother, though that's a different story), but as soon as I was able, I left. I took only enough money to get me out of New York, and got on a train to California. That's where I've been all of this time. The first time I stepped off the train and walked around, it was the oddest feeling. It was the first time in such a long time that I was just part of a crowd. Nobody recognized me or expected anything from me...That was actually a relief for me, particularly after what happened in Brooklyn on that last day. I've been pretty busy out here – I've gotten a couple of part-time jobs to make some money, but that's not what I want to do with my life.

Once I make enough money, I've decided, I'm going to open a shelter for runaway children. It's not only what Racetrack would have wanted, but it's also what _I_ want. I don't want any kids to find themselves starving on the streets when I could do something to help them. I've started looking around for good buildings to buy, but they're pretty expensive, so it may be a while before I have enough cash to do this.

But on another topic, Jack, I need you to do me a favor. Before I left New York, I saw Mush briefly in the street, and he told me that the idea to come help me was Dutchy's, and that Dutchy was feeling pretty guilty about what happened. If you can, I need you to tell Dutchy that it wasn't his fault. None of it was. I forced him to help me, and then (so I understand), Race forced him to come help me. Only the final plan was actually Dutchy's. So tell him that _I_ don't blame him, and I know that Racetrack wouldn't blame him either. We all made our own choices. I made the choice to try to face Blue on my own, and Race... Well, I may still think that he made a horrible decision at that last moment, but it was his to make. So tell Dutchy that. If anyone should bear the blame for it, it certainly isn't him.

I don't know if you know this, or even if I should be telling you this, but Racetrack was the first newsie I ever met. He was my first and only friend. It was because of him that my father threw me out, but it was also because of him that I found the newsies, who were a truer family than my flesh-and-blood family could ever have been. He gave me my name, along with so many other things. Deep inside, I don't think I'll ever stop missing him...or blaming myself for his death. I was an utter mess for weeks afterwards. I wish he hadn't jumped between me and Blue... He was worth more than me any day. He cared about people and wanted to help them. I just wanted to control them.

When I think back on it all, so much of it is a blur. More than anything, I remember something Race said to me. He told me that he gave me the cane so I could be a man. I didn't understand what he was saying at the time, but now I think I do. I spent so much time thinking about myself. Even the things I did for Brooklyn...Underneath it all, they were for _me_. But now I think I can start thinking about other people, about how I can help other people. I want to help people so that if Race is looking down on me, he'll think that I made something of myself, and that I at least attempted to pick up where he left off.

I know that you have these dreams of going to Santa Fe...It's not exactly right next door to where I am, but it's a lot closer than New York. So if you ever get out this way, it might be nice to see a familiar face. I could even give you a good soaking, for old times' sake.

Anyways, Jack, take care of yourself and take care of the boys...though I doubt I need to tell you that. You were much better at listening to your boys than I was at listening to mine. But from now on, I'll be doing my part from over here.

Good Luck with Everything,

Patrick


End file.
